


Sugar

by faobhar



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Splenda Daddy, Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Heist, M/M, Multi, Other, Past Character Death, Public Sex, Slow Build, kind of, more like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-09-18 02:38:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9362468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faobhar/pseuds/faobhar
Summary: Of all the contingencies Flint planned for while charting the course of his revenge, Silver was never one of them.





	1. Chapter 1

_ “ Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.”  _

_ ―  **Marcus Aurelius** ,  **Meditations** _

 

* * *

I.  
  


The first time Flint meets Silver, he nearly drops the other man off of a building. 

 

Next thing Flint knows, he's outfitting the fucker in tailored suits and playacting  handjobs in a private box at the opera. Well-worn copy of Marcus Aurelius aside, Flint doesn't think any amount of Greek stoicism could prepare a person for this shit.

 

\----

 

Flint's spent years studying the Hamilton family's multinational corporate empire. 

He knows the breadth of it-- subsidiary companies spanning across three continents, reaching into dozens of separate industries-- from business reports and bribed confessions. And its heft--a greater net worth than most countries--from the same.

He knows its defenses --rendered iron-clad by an army of sleek, Harvard-manufactured lawyers--from careful observation and hiring records. 

And he knows that it is an impenetrable juggernaut--that it crushes anything or anyone who dares to stand before it--from experience.

Flint is going to raze it to the ground.

Just as soon as he’s done with this jackass.

“Wait,” Silver says, scrambling to find a hold on Flint's arm—the only thing stopping Silver from falling back over the roof of the building.

Flint doesn’t remember wrenching Silver by the collar and dragging him to the edge, but here he is, with gravel and broken bottles crunching under his feet and a cold little whisper in the back of his head urging him to just let go. 

Because Flint's  _ this _ close to realizing the utter ruination of the Hamilton empire and this conman,  _ this little shit,  _ decides to steal the schedule?

There’s suddenly a looming presence at Flint’s side, which resolves itself from the dark gloom of the rooftop into Billy: “Flint. We need him.”

It makes Flint annoyed--Gates sending Billy along to act as a surrogate voice of reason in his stead. Gates’ thought --to stop Flint from doing anything ill-advised, like throw their only lead into a dumpster--is a respectable one. But Billy isn’t Gates, and so mostly Billy’s hesitant attempt at restraint only serves to feed the fire that's been eating a hole in Flints chest since Silver crashed into his life.

Because Flint doesn't need restraint. Flint needs--

“The schedule,” Flint demands, tugging Silver back from the ledge and letting him fall to the gravel.

Silver gulps in enormous breaths of air, pressing his hand against his chest and his throat to check that everything is still in working order. All things considered, he recovers remarkably quickly. 

With a nervous sort of smile he says: “Ah. About that…”

 

–--

 

“No.” 

Flint glares at Max, who is the first to suggest the idea. 

He sweeps his hand in Silver's direction, as if the entirety of Silver’s mere existence is sufficient to explain Flint's distaste: “This thief—this con artist—is not joining my crew.”

Silver actually has the gall to look indignant when Flint calls him a thief,  absurd given that Flint caught him in the act. Otherwise, he seems strangely unfrightened by the entire thing--a rabbit that hasn’t yet realized it's talked its way into a den of snakes. 

They're back in the warehouse that serves as their base of operations, Gates and Max sitting on either side of Silver.  All four are circled around Max's phone, an open line to Eleanor. 

O ver the speaker, Flint can hear her take a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly.

Flint is fond of Eleanor, almost despite himself. He is continually and pleasantly surprised by how often he finds their interests aligned, like two compass needles pulled along parallel magnetic lines. Like Flint, Eleanor is in this for more than just the unimaginable wealth promised at the end of the job.

But this seems to be one of the rare times they find themselves at odds.

Ever pragmatic, Eleanor had accepted the Silver situation almost as soon as she'd learned of their problem. As their financier and the scion of the Hamilton family's major rival, the Nassau corporation, her words hold weight here.

Flint feels a hand on his arm. He looks and finds that Gates is giving him a  _ look _ .  They've known each other for long enough to communicate in this way. Flint is particularly familiar with this one: _reel it in, Flint_. 

Flint unclenches his hands, fingernails leaving little white crescents in his palms as he forces himself to relax.

“I am not posing as _his_ \--” Flint  jabs a finger in Silver's direction, “'Sugar-daddy', Max.”

“I am just saying. The marks all know you too well,” Max says reasonably, hardly looking up from where she's painting her nails a vivid shade of red. “They know you wouldn't be caught dead in the restaurants and bars they frequent. It would raise eyebrows if you suddenly changed your habits, no? ”

“And we need you to be there for this to work,” Gates says, equally reasonable as Max blows on the nails of her left hand to dry them. “Because they know Billy and me as criminals, and Max is...Ah--”

“A favorite companion,” Max finishes for him. 

Flint thinks that it's a prudish sort of euphemism for five-star high-end escort but, given the quality of information Max has been providing, Max could call herself a favored professional mermaid impersonator and knot enthusiast for all he cares.

“But wining and dining your pretty new young man?”  Max says, looping her arm around Silver's shoulders and holding out her nails for him to admire. “This provides all the explanation anyone could need.”

Silver preens at being called pretty. What a ridiculous man, Flint thinks.

Silver opens his mouth to say something, but Flint cuts him off: “No.”

Silver shuts his mouth and Flint turns back to Gates and Max, weighing their options. 

Without the schedule, or rather with the schedule currently existing solely in Silver’s head, Flint is suddenly so _very_ far off course. Beneath the surface of Flint’s thoughts lurks a circling, unshakable conviction that latches on with wicked teeth--that this slow slide into uncharted territory is just one fuck-up from failure. If they aren't there already. 

But he cannot fail. Not in this.

So Flint sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing his index and middle fingers into his temple before laying out the least objectionable course of action. In Flint’s opinion it’s still pretty fucking objectionable, but Flint has done far worse to achieve lesser ambitions. 

When he understands that Flint has—grudgingly--accepted the necessity of the plan, Silver's smile is wide and bright, disarmingly charming.

Flint thinks he must be a good conman.

Flint wants to punch him in the face.

 

* * *

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hipster restaurants. Heistery. Silver is a deranged peacock.

II.

There is an annoyed grunt from the sofa as Flint draws up the blinds, flooding the warehouse office with the golden late-afternoon sun. The room smells like Gates’ cigarettes and Silver’s aftershave, the air close and warm with sleep. No doubt exhausted after a long night of grunt-work, Silver had evidently laid claim to the room for the purposes of a nap.

Silver’s on a sofa that is turned away from the door,  so that the only thing Flint can see is a few dark curls poking out at one end of the couch and a solitary foot dangled over the other, clad in threadbare sock dotted with a tiny skull-and-crossbones pattern.

Flint is casting around for something to throw in his direction when Silver pops his head up, squinting. His hair is mussed-- half-covering his face, half sticking up at fantastical angles--and he’s still in the clothes he wore yesterday.

“Don't you have anything else to wear?” Flint asks, eyeing what is visible of Silver's wrinkled shirt over the back of the sofa.

“What?” Silver blinks, frowning. “Why?”

Instead of answering, Flint throws the towel he's holding at Silver's head: “Shower's down the hall, first door on the left. There'll be something for you to put on when you're done.”

“Wait. Hey,” Silver says as Flint turns toward the door. He jumps up from the sofa, grabbing Flint's arm. “You didn't answer my—”

He stares meaningfully at Silver's hand. Flint tries to convey that there are many decidedly unpleasant things he can make fingers do, and that the only reason Silver still has a hand on him is because Flint isn’t yet sure which he would like to employ first. 

Silver backs off, palms out in a 'I-come-in-peace' gesture, “Just--where are we going?”

With all the joy of a funeral orator, Flint says: “We have a date.”

 

–--

 

Dressed in a stolen chef's uniform--which became increasingly bedraggled as he led Billy and Flint on a chase through the city's waterfront--Silver had not made the best first impression. But Flint has to admit that the man cleans up well.

Silver steps out of the back door of the warehouse and into the little car lot with the lose, friendly gait common to golden-retrievers and twats. He's wearing one of Flint's button-up shirts, a little tight across the shoulders, but it suits him just as well as Flint hoped it would--a stormy ocean color that makes Silver’s eyes seem impossibly blue.

“And where are we going?” Silver asks once he's standing at the passenger door on the opposite side of the car.

An explanation will save him an evening of grief, so Flint says: “Max's information points to a drop exchange sometime this week. We need to intercept it, so we’re tailing the member of the CFO’s staff who’s meant to be making the drop.”

“Come on,” Flint jerks open the car door, gesturing for Silver to do the same. “The bar's fairly high-end, so it's a good thing you clean up half-respectably.”

Silver doesn't get in the car. He gets this low, creeping smile that puts Flint in mind of a child about to poke an old dog with a stick--no purpose except the pleasure of agitating a reaction. 

He leans across the car toward Flint, body draped in what he must think is a hilariously affected pose-- the way he's resting his arms on the roof of the car cording the muscles of his arms and shoulders impressively.  There are a few too many buttons undone down the front of his shirt and that million-dollar-smile stretches wider still when Silver catches Flint following the line of his open collar down his chest. 

It's like watching a deranged peacock try to flirt with a pit-viper. 

“Are you sure I look respectable,  _ Daddy _ ?” Silver asks, dropping his voice into throaty rumble too theatrical to be remotely provocative. 

Flint resists the impulse to hit his own forehead against the door jamb. He wonders if Silver has some sort of death wish. Maybe Silver’s trying to build rapport or perhaps--god help Flint--he is actually trying to flirt.

There's no way in hell this plan is going to work, Flint thinks. No way.  They're hardly going to pass as inconspicuous love birds if he strangles Silver before they even make it through drinks at the bar.

Silver’s face falls: “Hey, come on. I was just--”

“Get. In. The. Car.”

 

–--

 

The mark leads them through two bars to a twee little restaurant. It is the kind of place that ironically serves twenty-dollar cocktails and deconstructed spaghetti, both—to Silver's evident delight— out of mason jars. Silver eyes the desert menu hopefully, and looks disappointed when Flint tells him they won't be ordering any.

Flint's poor mood isn't helped as evening creeps toward midnight and the mark continues to dine alone, without giving any indication of sneaking off for a clandestine meeting. This is frustrating, but hardly unexpected. 

Flint watches as the mark slips his phone into the jacket hanging off the back of his chair before leaving in the direction of the men’s room. Flint twists his hand into the pocket of his own dark car-coat, slipping out the small device concealed there for just such an eventuality. He couldn't have asked for a better opportunity. 

Silver, busy regaling the waitress with a story, jumps when Flint kicks him under the table.

“Ow,” Silver says, petulant as soon as the waitress is out of earshot. “What was that for?”

But Flint doesn't have the time, or need, to explain. What he needs is for Silver to stay put.

“Silver, stay,” Flint says, emphasizing the point by jamming a finger to the table before getting to his feet.

He makes his way over to the mark's table, where a waiter is standing with his back to Flint as he clears an adjacent booth of the empty plates and cups left by patrons. Flint eyes his tray, loaded high with cutlery and dishware, with intent.

Two seconds later, there's the icy, ringing clatter of glass and ceramic hitting the ground. Flint moves so smoothly the poor kid never suspects the tray had any help starting its noisy free-fall to the floor.

“Oh,” The waiter gasps, crouching down to asses the damage. “Sorry, man. Sorry--did anything get on you?”

“No, no,” Flint crouches down next to him, putting his body between the rest of the room and the chair from which the mark's jacket hangs.

“Don't worry about it,” He helps the waiter right the tray before rising and making his way back toward Silver.

“Ookay,” Silver says as Flint slides back into his seat at their table. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

“Needed to get close to his cell-phone,” Flint says, pulling out the small electronic device he'd used to clone the authentication key of the mark's SIM card. 

The mark's iphone is still in the jacket across the room, but if all goes well soon Flint will have an exact copy of the mark's phone at his fingertips. Or, more likely, at Dufresne's fingertips. 

Flint doesn’t get along with cell phones.

Flint clips the cloning device into his own phone and turns it on, punching in the SIM card's IMSI number and hoping he's memorized the fifteen digits correctly.

“I'm so happy to have been press-ganged into coming along,” Silver's whispers, sarcastic as Flint fiddles with the screen. “I feel so very useful and well-informed of what the fuck we're doing.”

“The only reason you're here is so I can keep an eye on you,” Flint says dismissively, most of his attention on the phone. He should be able to do this. Dufresne showed him how three times. Fuck, Flint hates cell phones. He jabs at the tiny keyboard like it's one of Silver's eyes. “You're only as good to me as that schedule you've got in your head.” 

While Silver mulls that over, Flint tries the program one more time.  Finally, Dufresne's damned thing works. The background of Flint's phone and all the icons fade away leaving the sleek, silvery OS of the mark's iphone. 

He's in.

As Silver chases the last of his spaghetti with his fork, Flint flips through the mark's call log and voice-mail without finding anything about the drop. E-mail is password protected, so he'll have to leave that to Dufresne. Instead, he moves on to texts messages.

At  first glance that seems boringly uninformative as well. Flint learns nothing beyond the fact that the guy's kind of an asshole, with an odd penchant for using too many exclamation points and emojis. 

The last text in the log looks like an ongoing conversation with a work acquaintance. Flint glances through the history first-- for the most part nothing but crude jokes and belly-aching about the job, interspersed with detailed critical analysis of the newest junior staff member's tits.

Charming.

Flint gets to the most recent exchange, sent from the mark's phone forty minutes ago. Skimming the words, Flint feels an unpleasant jolt, like being tugged deep and breathless by the pull of an icy undercurrent.

Because these texts are about Flint-- about Miranda, about Thomas.

**“ _Shit man!! What was the name of that guy Thomas's wife was fucking? I think I just saw him in this place I'm at!!!!”_**

It isn't the recognition that bothers Flint. With all the corporate parties Thomas and Miranda roped him into over the years,  it would be more surprising if no one recognized him at all. That won’t be a problem because, when this thing is done, Flint's fingerprints won't be anywhere near it. 

No. What gets Flint's blood boiling, what sets that dark thing inside him spiraling out like a fucking hurricane waiting just offshore, is the rest of the text. 

It's base and crude, peppered with words like 'cuck' and 'closeted'. There are speculations that the affair between Thomas's wife and 'this ginger fuck' are what drove Thomas to--to do what he did, in the end.

There is a knot in Flint’s throat and it curls Flint’s  hands into lead weights on the table. 

He's too warm. Too aware of his pulse pounding in his ears—of every single other person in this restaurant. Because the mark is just sitting there and Flint is just sitting here across from an idiot eating noodles out of a jar. 

Inaction is unendurable. He needs to move, to do anything to break free of this terrible stagnancy. He wants--he wants--

Then something unexpected happens: Silver laughs, sharp and bright. 

It shakes Flint out of his thoughts. He _can’t_ do anything now. They’re in public, surrounded by yuppies and hipsters and the sort of people who can afford to eat their pasta out of jars. 

He can’t do anything  _ now _ .

“You,are terrible at this. You look miserable.” Silver says, and after a second of consideration adds: “...And kind of terrifying. What’s happened?” 

“I got the clone. Sticking around is going to be a waste of time,” Flint hisses into his earpiece, ignoring Silver. “The drop isn't happening tonight.”

“Is that an earpiece?” Silver whispers, and Flint just knows how much he must have loved spy movies as a kid by the way his face lights up. “Do I get one?”

“Alright, Billy and I are at his apartment,” Gates says through the earpiece. His voice, though small and metallic-sounding through the comm, is just as familiar and grounding as Flint knew it would be.

“Right. We--” Flint never gets to finish the thought.

He breaks off as a warm hand settles at his neck, rough with callouses.  Flint pushes down his knee-jerk flinch as a thumb brushes his cheek, dragging against his stubble with perfect, unexpected tenderness. 

It’s Silver. 

And it is completely jarring. 

Briefly—for just a second—Flint is startled into absolute stillness. The noise of the restaurant fades as Silver leans in closer, across the table. Silver smells like Flint’s shampoo and the cigarettes he keeps begging off Max and Gates, breath hot against Flint’s skin as he dips his head close to murmur something into Flint’s ear. 

What in hell--

“Hi Gates,” Silver whispers, cheeky shit.

The moment collapses back in on itself. 

Is Silver incapable of behaving for more than a minute?

Unwilling to show how badly he’s been taken off guard--even less willing to let Silver see how much the contents of the mark’s cell phone have disturbed him-- Flint’s voice drips with venom as he says:“Get your hand--”

"Trust me," Silver cuts him off in a rapid-fire whisper: “Trust me. Flint, god, can you just look less murderous, for a second? There's a reason. People have been looking over here for the last five minutes, because you look like you're about to have an aneurysm.”

“...And as it turns out,” Silver darts his eyes meaningfully to the mark,  “whispering to the air like an insane person also attracts attention.”

Flint looks and sees the mark glancing furtively in their direction. When Flint catches his eye, the man averts his gaze, abashed for watching this apparently intimate moment of affection.

Shit.

“Huh,” Gates says. He must have heard the entire exchange. “Good eye, Silver.”

Silver is so close to Flint's face that he can almost feel it when Silver smiles, self-satisfied  though he can't have possibly heard Gates' praise. Maybe Silver isn’t quite the idiot Flint sized him up to be,  because he draws back to his side while Flint still has patience to spare. 

They stare across the table at one another-- Flint assessing and Silver almost hopeful. Is he expecting Flint to be grateful?  Impressed?

“Ask someone for a dessert menu,” Flint finally says. “So we’re not just sitting here.”

  
\---


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

III.

 

While working with Silver isn’t quite the high-caliber shitshow Flint had imagined, the situation keeps surprising him in small but  dreadful ways. It’s like having one of those rat-sized, annoyingly persistent mutts trailing him everywhere and biting at his ankles every step of the way. Flint feels almost as though he’s disarmed a bomb, only to find that by cutting the wires he’s damned himself to a life of little losses:

His privacy. His office. His temper. 

His dignity.   
  


\----

 

Gates climbs up to where Flint is sitting on the window ledge with his tablet.

“ Silver's right,”  Gates says without preamble, clunking a beer against Flint's right knee by way of greeting.

“ No he’s not,” Flint says, uninterested in specifics but certain that he is correct. He sets down the tablet and accepts the beer. Flint gives it and then Gates a curious look.

They're on the second floor walkway winding around the interior of the warehouse, where Flint has taken to retreating for solitude or concentration. Gates wouldn't be intruding here without a reason.

“ Your cover, Flint,” Gates clinks their bottles together in a wordless little cheer before taking a long swallow of beer. “It's lacking.”

“ I wouldn't have taken Silver on if we had any other option,” Flint says, taking a drink of his own as he waits for Gates to spit out whatever it was he came up here to say.

“ Flint, the only reason you weren't made that night in the restaurant is because Silver was paying attention,” Gates says with a sigh--an exasperated sort of noise that only seems to come out when Flint is nearby and acting particularly hard-headed.

Flint is somewhat familiar with the sound.

Gates says:  “I’m doing this job because I want to  _ retire _ . But you? I don’t know why you’re doing this.  It's obviously personal...”

There’s something about the way he says it. A thought strikes Flint: perhaps Gates has seen the texts on the mark’s phone and has somehow guessed their meaning. It isn’t likely, but the idea of it twists in his gut.  Gates knows him better than most anyone except Miranda. But this is a secret Flint buried deep, where no one could trip over it idly.

Flint must look as though he’s about to open his mouth because Gates quickly adds: ”I don’t need to know the why. Just need to know you're not so deep into this that you aren’t seeing clearly.”

“My _reasons_ are none of your concern,” Flint says coolly. “This is my team, my plan. You want enough money to retire--by the time this is done, each and every one of us will have more money than we could spend in fifty lifetimes. Is that not reason enough?”

“ No. No, I don’t doubt that,” Gates shrugs, but he’s still looking at Flint out of the corner of his eye. Flint feels like he’s being assessed somehow--sized-up like a rusted-out, second-hand car. “But your cover is still terrible.”

“ It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Flint says, setting his bottle down on the sill. “It just has to work.”

“ Just as well,” Gates says, with a lighter tone that suggests he has no desire to push the issue further. “Might have to conscript Max to give you a few pointers.”

Flint lets out a short bark of laughter.

Silver, deep in conversation with Max on the first floor of the warehouse, looks up at the noise. He turns his head toward them, surprised like he hadn't thought Flint capable of humor, let alone genuine, gut-punched laughter. 

The expression on his face is almost enough to set Flint off all over again and he snorts.

But then he sees Gates.

“ You weren't joking,” Flint says. “About Max.”

Gates sighs.

 

–---   
  


Max catches him later.

She's going over some of the more technical details of the plan with Billy and one of Billy's men, her blueprints and field notes scattered across the table, weighted down in the corners by old coffee cups and takeout containers. Flint can't remember the other guy's name—Weller, or Miller, maybe. Tall and quiet, he’d always seemed a bit skittish to Flint.

Max looks up as he enters, and her face lights up.

“ Silver is an attractive young man,” Max says instead of ‘hello’.  “And yet--”

“ Max, I am not having this conversation,” Flint says.

Max ignores this, sweet and knowing as she says: “It can be difficult at first, pretending. Especially if it has been a while?”

After the violence promised in his unblinking glare, Flint’s silence is one of the most powerful tools in his arsenal. He says nothing.

“ Well, if you want practice,” Max shrugs as she turns back to the table and her laptop, “I'm sure Weller would be more than happy to help.”

Billy's man—it was Weller, after all—makes a noise like a strangled cat before blushing an impressive shade of bright, boiled-lobster red. All the way up to the tips of his ears.

Max smiles. Flint is beginning to understand why she and Silver have been getting on so well. .

“ Can we get back to business?” Billy asks, pained. “Please?”

Flint cannot imagine how Billy grew to such great and handsome heights while still being so uncomfortable with talk of anything sexual, but in this moment Flint is grateful for it. All three of them turn back to the table. Max is pulling up a file she wants them to look at when a voice at the door calls out: “Flint!”

Will he get any work done today, Flint wonders, or is this just another intruder intent on telling Flint he isn’t selling the con and what he really needs to do is just grab Silver’s ass some more?

As if summoned by the thought, Silver slides to a stop in the entryway. He blinks in surprise as all eyes in the room turn to him: “Oh, Hello Max. Billy, Weller. What’d I miss?”

How in hell does he know Weller’s name already?

“ Silver,” Flint grabs his arm and steers him back. “With me. Important thing with the mark.”

Flint pushes Silver out of the room, ignoring the filthy wink Max shoots him when she catches his eye.

“ So,” Silver says once they’ve reached the safety of the carpark, one eyebrow raised in a wordless question. He had allowed himself to be pulled out of the warehouse without much fuss or much explanation from Flint.

What a remarkably adaptable creature Silver is.

“ Car,” Flint says.

Silver snorts as he settles into the passenger seat: “I was talking with Dufresne--apparently we do indeed have ‘important thing’ with the mark.”

Flint noses the car out of the tight alleyway to the street. He stops before pulling out onto the main road, glaring left and then right.

Without a word, Silver types the address into the GPS.

 

\----

 

They pull up outside a divey-looking bar that oozes sleaze and a steady trickle of stumbling patrons.

“ What are you doing?” Silver stares as Flint pops a few buttons down his shirt, rolling up the sleeves to the elbow before running his hands through his hair a few times.

This time, it’s Silver whose eyes linger just a beat too long, oblivious as three of the bar’s customers stagger past the car window behind his head. Their murky shapes lean drunkenly into one another like ships in a storm-- a trashy, trashed-looking six-legged animal.

“ Fitting in,” Flint looks Silver up and down before adding: “Don’t worry, you’re fine just as you are.”

Instead of taking offence, Silver looks like he’s trying not to smile as he starts to ask: “So you’re saying I’m _fine_ D--”

“ Silver, I promise you that if you finish that sentence with the word ‘Daddy’, no one is ever going to find your body,” Flint says, but without any real menace. “Come on.”

Flint slides out of the car and stalks to the entrance, Silver trailing behind closely in his wake.

They attract a few curious glances from the crowd as they make their way into the bar. It is narrow and dark, smelling strongly of fried food and stale beer. Flint spots the mark, looking lonely and out of place where he’s tucked away into a corner booth. His face is a pale beacon in the darkness, illuminated by the bluish glow of his phone.

Their entrance goes unnoticed. Good.

Flint pulls out two stools at the bar, reasonably close to the mark’s booth, and waits for Silver to sit before following suit. The place is packed, and Flint has to pull his chair close to be heard over the hum of the crowd and the numbing bass of the speakers. His leg bumps against Silver’s as he leans in to catch the bartender’s attention.

The bored-looking woman behind the counter turns to him expectantly. He is about to order them two whiskies, neat because this seems like  the kind of bar where the ice machine has probably has been allowed to develop mold to the point of sentience and might in fact have more culture than the entire block. Then he remembers the disgusted-cat face Silver had pulled knocking back whisky at the last bar.

“ Two dark and stormies,” He tells her. After seeing Silver’s longing glance at the appetizer menu, he beckons her back over: "A basket of mozzarella sticks as well, thank you.”

Without looking down, he pushes one of the glasses and the red plastic basket in Silver’s direction when they arrive. Flint keeps most of his attention on the mark, but feels an unexpected but gratifying sort of righteousness as Silver attacks the food with gusto-- even if Silver’s hunched over like a man starved, like he’s worried Flint might change his mind and restate his claim on this cheesey bounty at any moment.

They sit in a surprisingly companionable silence that could almost be called  _ pleasant _ . Not generally one for the social pleasantries of city nightlife-- or for crowds in general-- Flint can’t remember the last time he was so at ease in a bar like this. Not since he can remember. Never, maybe. The sense of purpose grounds him.

Silver plows through most of the food while they wait. It feels like hours before the mark slides out of the booth and toward the back of the bar, although Flint’s watch marks only forty minutes.

“ Move,” Flint whispers as he pulls Silver up. They trail the mark through the pulsing, claustrophobic press of bodies to a little side door.

Though the door is marked with an emergency exit only sign and a stern warning that it will shriek if opened, the thing stays stubbornly silent as first the mark and then Flint and Silver slip out into the night.  As they emerge in the dark alley behind the building, the air is  gloriously cool after the crushing heat inside. Their view is obscured by a dumpster, parked far too close to the door to satisfy even the most lenient of fire codes. Flint pauses to listen and can almost make out  two low voices, hoarse in a whispered conversation.  

He creeps forward until the murmurs resolve themselves into words. A rush of adrenaline quickens his pulse until his heartbeat is a dull roar in his ears.

“ \--take the tickets,” says an unfamiliar voice from just beyond the dumpster. “We’re done here.”

“ For the ten o’clock performance?” The mark asks, a thin  tremor of nervousness quickening his words. “At the Strand?”

“ It says so on the tickets, you dumb fuck,” the second man says. “Christ, get those out of sight and get out of here--”

Then there’s the sound of footsteps. One set fades as the stranger makes his way back out of the alley toward the street. The other set gets louder and closer as the mark retraces his path back toward the bar. 

Back toward SIlver and Flint.

Shit.

Flint presses a hand back, urging Silver to retreat toward the door. They’re still hidden by the dumpster, but there’s no way they’ll make it inside in time.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Flint catches Silver’s gaze and sees that he’s had the same thought. The mark is just on the other side of the dumpster now and they have seconds until he rounds the corner and spots them. Silver’s looking to him, an unspoken: ‘ _ what now _ ?’ in his eyes.

He is crouched so close at Flint’s side that they’re almost touching, their faces inches from one another. Flint suddenly remembers the hipster restaurant and how awkward the mark had looked when Silver touched Flint’s cheek--that uncomfortable, averted gaze.

With the footsteps drawing closer, there’s no time to second guess himself.

Flint twists a hand into the front of Silver’s shirt and pulls him into in an awkward sort of dance--dragging him forward as Flint moves back and back.

Flint grunts, the air knocked out of him as his back butts up hard against the rough brick wall.  He keeps tugging until Silver is flush against him. Their legs tangle awkwardly as Flint releases Silvers shirt to get a grip on his long curls, pulling their heads together so that the only thing the mark will see is Silver’s dark, anonymous back.

It’s not a kiss-- just their faces pressed impossibly close, breathing the same air. Silver’s breath hot on his neck. 

Silver catches on quickly. He reaches out to mirror Flint, dragging his fingers through the hair just behind Flint’s right ear. The touch is tentative, slow where Flint had been urgent and rough. Flint can feel Silver’s heartbeat quicken where his hand is pressed against Silver’s neck.

Then the not-kiss turns into something very like kissing.Their noses bump together as Silver’s lips find the corner of Flint’s mouth. 

Given the way Silver’s got one thigh slotted between Flint’s legs, pressing together like they’re trying to break the laws of physics and force two bodies to occupy the same space, it’s almost comically chaste.

Silver’s hair is soft and too-long in his fingers. Silver’s blood sings beneath the thin skin where neck meets  jaw--Flint can feel it under his palm. 

It’s only meant to be a distraction. They both know this, but Flint has the foolish impulse to repeat the words aloud.  

But then Silver doesn’t move from where he’s more or less smashed their faces together. Even in the poorly lit alleyway there’s no way in hell this is going to look convincing, Flint thinks. So he turns his head and properly kisses Silver. 

So soft that Flint can barely hear it, Silver makes this sound like--

There is the scuttle of footsteps behind Silver, and the slam of the door behind the mark as he beats a hasty retreat back into the bar.

They break apart.

He ignores the way Silver keeps looking over at him as they drive back to the warehouse.


	4. Chapter 4

Flint catches Silver watching him over the next couple of days. The look is occasionally something between a thoughtful expression and an angry, sore thing. More often though, Silver’s covert glances are unreadable and he always looks away as soon as Flint catches him at it.

Flint is too preoccupied to give the situation much thought. There is only one scheduled event at The Strand that begins at 10 pm--the annual opera gala fundraiser.

Somehow, knowing this doesn’t ease Flint’s unease. With the transition from some amorphous future date to an actual concrete time and place, Flint finds that he can hardly stand the glacial pace at which the days creep forward. He drives his team to relentless hours, going over the smallest detail again and again--nothing can be left to chance.

After a week or so of this treatment Gates points out that Flint is being a fucking bastard and that, regardless of the unimaginable payout, he will drive them all to mutiny if he continues to set such a demanding pace.

Gates also points out that this could perhaps be avoided by affording a night off every now and again. So that evening, Flint releases them into the wilds of the city--or, perhaps more accurately, inflicts them upon it.

Max vanishes, presumably slipping out  to meet with Eleanor, and Silver somehow manages to talk most of the team into going down to the local pub. Declining the cursory offer to join, Flint tries to imagine a scenario where this doesn't end in arson or some kind of felony.

He watches  Silver jab Muldoon in the arm as they all but skip out of the building. The roughhousing seems childish, but Muldoon just laughs like they’re a couple of frat boys on the cusp of a weekend full of poor life choices. Flint wonders how old Silver even is--why he’s punching hardened criminals and charming them into playing rounds of bar trivia instead of schmoozing his way up the corporate ladder at his first job.

Then Gates clears out for the night and Flint has the place to himself.

The building is silent and dark, the tiny pool of yellow light cast by the office desk lamp an island in a vast and shadowy sea. Flint doesn’t mind--the space seems made for nights like this.

The scholar in him loves the warehouse office with an affection as total as it is inexplicable, and had since the moment he laid eyes on it. Somehow stepping into the little, dust-covered room for the first time after Gates found the place had been like looking up from a crowd in a foreign country only to catch sight of a familiar face.

The towering, built-in shelves stand like sentinels against the walls and the pockmarked desk is made of thick, dark oak that shines like still water beneath the crooked little banker’s lamp. Under the lingering ghost of cigarette smoke are the faint smells of old books and beeswax and leather.

He pulls out his files and his tablet and spreads them at the desk. Hours pass.

 

\---

 

Sometime around midnight, Flint makes an unexpected discovery in the process of closing a document of schematics on his tablet--as boring as trying to slog through a treatise on the mating habits of hermaphroditic sea snails and just about as relevant. Or rather as he tries to close it-- the damn thing has frozen and won’t heed Flint’s commands.

With far too much force, Flint sets the tablet aside with the vague hope that it will begin working again on its own if he simply ignores it for long enough. But slamming the thing to the desk upsets one of the folders, sending papers scattering everywhere.

Flint stoops down to scoop something off the floor--a promotional photo of some long-ago holiday party of the Hamiltons. An unfamiliar group of middle-aged men with neon-colored leis around their necks, dopey-eyed and red-cheeked with booze, smile sloppily at the camera and clutch their tropical-looking drinks.

He is about to push it to one side when something at the very edge of the frame catches his attention and he freezes halfway through bringing it back up to the desk.

Because there in the background are Thomas and Miranda. Perhaps a good decade before he met them, but still easily recognized.

Even slightly out of focus, they look radiant--Thomas in a beautifully tailored suit and Miranda draped in a sleek silk dress Flint’s never seen before. Silvery and streamlined, she projects the untouchable, ethereal beauty of  an art deco skyscraper. Thomas is wearing a horrendous pink lei without a trace of irony, and the photographer has captured him trying to drape a matching green lei over Miranda’s head. Seeing them like that, turned in toward one another in that way they used to have, provokes an ache for them like a phantom limb.

And it bothers Flint that he girds himself against the past with such care, yet keeps tripping over these little hurts—this, those texts from before.

But this, at least, is bittersweet. It is a good photo. Thomas and Miranda look impossibly young, winsome and foolish and good in a way that makes Flint glad to have met them.

Flint folds the photograph with care and slips it into his pocket.

 

\---

  
  


Halfway through Max’s report on the company’s impressive array of offshore accounts, the words begin to blur. When Flint finds himself accidentally going over the same paragraph for the third time without retaining a single word, he decides to take a leaf out of Silver’s book and stretches out on the worn leather couch.

Flint doesn’t often dream.

Maybe it’s the photo, or the sheer accumulated exhaustion of the past few weeks finally claiming its due, but tonight he sinks under the black surface of sleep into a memory:

_Thomas spiriting away Miranda and Flint for a conservation project in the Bahamas. A weekend where hours ebb by, the days stretched out like perfect, lazy eternities before them as they hardly leave the room--hardly leave the bed--at all. Venturing out into the night, barefoot, to explore the island._

_The heat is relentless. When it finally breaks, cool and moonless after nightfall, stepping out onto the sand is like stepping out onto the surface of another planet._

_It feels timeless. Primordial._

_Thomas finds it--the little beach where the water glows with an alien, turquoise light at the line where the waves meet the shore. The night is so dark that Flint can hardly see the other two, just this unearthly, glowing sea and the stars spread above him in the velvety night._

_Thomas’s awe is contagious._

_He presses up against Flint’s back, hooking his chin over Flint’s shoulder as he goes on and on about bioluminescent microbes. Miranda strips and leads them both out into the water, the blue-green light sparking up in her wake like a leyline._

_He doesn’t know how long they float there, haloed in light, but when Flint turns his face he finds Thomas watching him. Looking at Flint like Thomas looks at those pictures from Mars or the Greek sculptures at the British Museum or Miranda._

_It hits Flint like a bullet to the chest._

_He opens his mouth to say: I love you,_   _but the words get stuck in his throat. Flint reaches out, but his hands find only seawater._

_This isn’t how it happens in the memory, Flint knows this. He feels a strange sense of vertigo, like the earth is moving underneath him while he is stuck. Anchored to this point in time._

_In the dream, Thomas sinks beneath the mirrored black surface of the sea. Switchflip, the unearthly beauty of the place turns to bone-deep horror as down, down, down, Thomas vanishes into the deep._

_Then Miranda is gone, eaten up by darkness as ravenous as the terror that wells up in Flint like a back draft._ _And Flint calls out, but his voice gets eaten up too._

_Seized by a feral panic, Flint can't find the shore. The only sound is the sea all around him. The blue light fades and then the stars disappear one by one into nothing._

_Flint is left, until he wakes._

He blinks.

The early morning sun shines in through the windows, the light of day making the office seem infinitely smaller than it had the night before. Flint lies where he is for a moment, listening to the little noises of the rest of the team as they filter in for the day.

He cannot for one indulgent second allow himself to ache.

 

\----

  
  


The list of things Flint needs to oversee or see to personally is far too fucking long.

Flint needs to coordinate with Dufresne to beg, borrow, or steal tickets to the sold-out gala. He needs to talk with Eleanor. And as Silver refuses to hand over the schedule until he absolutely has to, Flint needs to find Silver a suit because Flint now has a ‘date’ for the ultimate realization of years of carefully crafted revenge.

Borrowing a shirt is one thing, but Silver can hardly wear one of Flint’s suits to a charity gala. Not when the funds required to procure a single ticket could alternately be used to outfit a good-sized militia.

Max is otherwise occupied, and Flint hardly trusts anyone else in the warehouse to dress themselves in a credible business casual, let alone toe the ambiguous line between white and black tie. So the task falls to Flint.

“I have a suit,” Silver insists as Flint bundles them both out of the warehouse.

“Not this kind of suit.”

  
  


\----

  
  


Flint watches Silver gawk as they enter the fussy little tailor shop.

As they make their way into the lavishly decked-out front room that serves as the shop’s waiting area, Flint can hardly blame him.

"Is that a python?" Silver asks, pointing to an enormous yellow snake curled  in a sleek-looking glass case in one corner, half hidden behind some sort of large and leafy houseplant. 

The place always makes Flint think of a Victorian sitting room, so cluttered with rich and splendid objects clamoring for attention that the overall effect is one of overwhelmed confusion rather than appreciation.

What Flint can appreciate are the two glasses of scotch produced, as if from thin air, by the equally fussy little man who steps out to greet them.

Give Jack Rackham a month or two and the guy could turn a naked mole rat of a man into James Bond, at least from the neck down. They don’t have a month, but Silver is hardly a naked mole rat of a man.

Flint greets Rackham and makes introductions, adding: “Max sends her regards.”

“Anne will be disappointed,” Rackham says, pressing one glass of scotch into Flint’s hands before turning to Silver.

Rackham gives a pleasant ‘nice to meet you’ smile as he reaches out to shake Silver’s hand. He passes Silver the second glass of scotch so smoothly that Silver hardly realizes he reached out to accept it in the first place.

He stares down at his hands, looking as confused as a dog trying to puzzle out a sleight of hand trick.

“Mr. Silver,” Rackham says. “Pleasure. Now what are we thinking? Hmm. Definitely something blue. Bring out those eyes. Let me show you some options...”

Flint has to fight back a smile when Silver’s eyes go wide, alarmed as Rackham begins to lead him deeper into the shop.

After watching the man glide effortlessly through everything Flint has thrown at him, from painfully self-aware restaurants to the city’s criminal underbelly, it’s nice to finally see Silver on unfamiliar ground.  

Flint Ignores the impulse to prolong Silver's discomfort and instead trails them as they make their way toward the fitting room.  As soon as he's seen that Flint is following, Silver looks relieved.  
  


 

\---

  
  


Rackham works mostly in bespoke suits, a lengthy process which produces some of the finest menswear in the city. For the purposes of security, Rackham has to taken Silver on as a solo project and with their tight schedule, he agrees to push the lengthy process forward by starting with a prefabricated base rather than working straight from scratch. Even though it looks as though it physically pains him to do so.

Silver fidgets through the entire process of being measured.

After he has completed this task with the same pick-pocket efficiency with which he presented their drinks, Rackham sidles up to Flint.

“And how do we feel about brocades?” Rackham spreads his palms, inviting Flint and Silver to gaze upon his grand artistic vision.

Flint stares at Rackham. Over the other man’s shoulder, he sees Silver mouth the word _brocades_ to himself in the mirror like he thinks it might be a type of food.

“Plaid?” Rackham looks hopeful.

“Something _classical_ ,” Flint says.

“B _oring_. Not even a subtle--?”

“Rackham, I know the concept is strange to you, but we are trying to fit in,” Flint says. “No fucking plaid, no brocade. Now bring us something we can work with.”

As Rackham sulks out of the room, Flint reaches for his scotch. While the man’s fashion proclivities are much too flamboyant for Flint, Rackham’s taste in whisky is without fault.

Flint swirls the glass, letting the rich bouquet of peat and the sea waft pleasantly upward before taking a small sip. He lets his eyes close. After the alcohol burn of it fades, all that is left is the earthy taste of honey and smoke.

Silver--jesus fucking christ-- simply takes an enormous slug of it like he’s downing a cheap shot of cheap vodka with the clock running down on a happy hour special.

Flint is moved to intervene before he can think: “What the Fuck Silver? ”

Silver is still turned toward the mirror, so his bewilderment is reflected back rather than directed at Flint. There is something of an immigrant trying to puzzle out a strange new culture in the look and he’s hunched in on himself a little, stripped down to shorts and his undershirt for the fitting.

Flint is struck as he was before--that Silver is, surprisingly, in over his head here.

“That's not how you--” Flint strides across the room. Realizing that he’s left his own glass on the side table, he takes Silver’s instead. “Here.”

After demonstrating a more leisurely and appreciative method, Flint pushes the drink back into Silver’s hands. As he takes it, Silver’s warm palms slide over Flint’s fingers in a way that could be accidental but is probably not-- for a beat too long, and with more contact than is strictly necessary.

After Flint gets his hand back, Silver turns the glass in his grip, rotating it to take an exploratory taste from the same side Flint drank from. Making a point of doing so, Flint realizes with a jolt.

His eyes don’t leave Flint’s face as he tips the glass to his lips, closing them only after he’s taken a sip.

He groans, the same small and pleased sound as when they’d kissed days before in the alley. The sound goes straight to Flint’s--

“I’ve brought some options to start with,” Rackham sweeps into the room with a wheeled clothing rack.

Glad of the interruption, Flint turned to study the selection. He weeds out the flashiest of the suits and returns them to Rackham, surprised to find the remnants more-or-less satisfactory. “These will do to start.”

He pushes Silver and one of the suits toward the dressing room, taking care to reclaim Silver's scotch before it can be subjected to further indignities.

Silver looks as though he might protest, so Flint tells him: “I'm confiscating this. I don't trust you around high-end anything unsupervised.”

And hell, it looks as though Flint’s going to need it.

  
  


\----

  
  


Flint commandeers one of the low, muscular chairs and vetoes a parade of suites, much to Silver’s increasing exasperation.

After the fourth rejection, Silver starts back toward the dressing room only to turn on the spot and face Flint: “You just keep saying no without explaining why.”

Flint shrugs “And?”

“‘ _And?_ ’” Silver says in a way that sounds remarkably like ‘you fucking bastard’. “ _And_ I’m not trying on another suit until you tell me what’s wrong with this one?”

Fine.

Flint rises from the chair and pulls Silver around until he’s standing between Flint and the mirrors. Reflected back in triplicate.

“It would be simpler to tell what isn’t wrong with this one. This here.” Flint brings his hands up Silver's arms where the shoulder pads jut a good quarter-inch too far past Silver’s actual shoulders. Can feel the muscle there ripple under his palm like a cat. “That is a problem of construction, not something that can be fixed with tailoring.”

Silver rolls his eyes, but doesn’t move to get away or get Flint’s hands off of him. “Okay--”

“Here.” Flint interrupts him with an open-handed thump to the chest that has Silver letting out a great whoosh of breath, resting his hand just above the breast pocket. “This color looks like a dark brown or red, but the orange undertone that comes out in the light is not doing that skintone of yours any favors.”

Silver meets Flint's eyes in the mirror. Flint can feel his chest jerk up with a sharp inhale.

Instead of ‘fuck you’, this time it sounds more like an invitation when Silver says: “And?”

“Here,” Flint slides his hand down, tapping one of the puckering buttons before sliding his hand into the suit between the lapel and Silver’s chest. “And here. This is far too tight. You should be able to easily slide a hand between the jacket and your body.”

Flint lets his hand rest just under Silver's collarbone. Seeming to suddenly find looking at Flint second-hand though the mirror unsatisfying, Silver turns his head a little to look back at Flint instead.

Flint can feel Silver’s heart race as Flint tilts his head in until his mouth is level with the shell of Silver’s ear.

“And that,” He whispers, “is why I keep saying no instead of wasting time explaining precisely why each suit is lacking. Now are you satisfied?”

The only answer Silver makes is a complicated sort of shrug.

So Flint shoves Silver in the direction of the dressing room, a dazed look to him like a bird trying to regain its bearings after flying headlong into a plane glass window. Flint settles back into his chair.

He wonders how depressing it is, that somehow the highlight of his day is now fucking with Silver.

Then Silver walks out of the dressing room and Flint can't do anything but stare.

Silver smiles. “So that’s not a no?”

The suit is a very dark navy color, which looked almost tacky and boorish on the rack but is somehow perfect against Silver’s skin. Besides the color, it is rather traditional--single-buttoned with jetted pockets. But with Silver wearing it, it somehow becomes something more--the dark blue looking richer than any black ever could and the simplicity of the cut flattering Silver’s lines so that rather than disappearing behind the suit, Silver becomes the focal point.

Flint realizes he hasn’t spoken when Silver frowns: “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing Rackham can’t fix.”

Flint checks the lay of the lapels by tugging at them, which Silver allows. Upon closer inspection, the fabric is thick and almost matte. Twisting it slightly so the light hits it at an angle, Flint can just make out a subtle patterning of some sort--invisible from any distance greater than a few inches.

Fucking Rackham and his patterns.

“You’re going to wrinkle it,” Silver voice comes out slightly breathy, concerned. Like he is enjoying the attention but is also genuinely worried that Flint is going to damage the suit.

“Well, I’m buying it.”

  
  


\----

  
  


When they return to the warehouse, Flint is alarmed at its emptiness for a second or two before he remembers he gave everyone the evening off again. Unlike Flint, Silver seems disturbed by the great, peopleless scope of the place, calling it creepy and lonely.

“Well its a good thing you have the evening off then,” Flint climbs the stairs to the office without a backward glance. "No one's making you stay."

He hears the door open and close as Silver leaves, presumably to the pub.

Flint is enormously surprised when Silver returns twenty minutes later with two paper bags of takeout from that Thai place up the road, greasy and redolent with ginger and the sharp, liquorice smell of star anise. Partially because he hadn’t expected Silver to return at all, but also because anything from the Thai place normally takes upward of an hour.

“Here.” Silver trades one of the bags for a file, throws himself to to the floor with his back against Flint’s desk to eat and spread the print-outs over the floorboards for examination.

Baffled to suddenly find diner in his hands and Silver settled at his feet, Flint is at a loss. For lack of anything else to do, he opens the bag--green curry.

“Don’t drop anything on my papers,” He finally says.

Flint should have known better when, half an hour later and from somewhere near his right knee Silver says: “Fuck.”

Flint looks to see Silver holding a manila envelope now splattered with bright red oil.

“What did I say?”

Flint reaches for the envelope to do damage control, but in his haste knocks one of the plastic cups of sauce over the edge of the desk and onto Silver’s head.

Given the circumstances and the look on Silver's face, it must seem intentional. An apology would only come across as disingenuous at this point.

There is a long pause, like the moment before a roller coaster crests the first peak of its course, the anticipation of delirious acceleration.

Flint throws some napkins down but Silver, indignant as a wet cat, balls them up and throws them at Flint’s chest. It must be some sort of momentary insanity brought on by sleep deprecation, but Flint thinks _fuck it_ and dumps the remaining napkins and a few plastic utensils from the paper bag on to Silver’s head as well.

To Flint’s surprise, Silver-- with a white plastic forks still tangled in his hair-- tackles Flint out of the chair.

But Silver seems just as surprised at his own actions as Flint and, getting a good look at Flint’s expression, seems to think better of it and tries to retreat.

Flint snags Silver by the ankle.

Silver is young and strong, but clearly not accustomed to fighting and with no natural aptitude for it, so Flint soon has him pinned by the arms.

Silver looks like he can’t decide whether to be terrified or turned on or both. Something about the expression strikes Flint as impossibly funny, and he laughs.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to fight?”

“Not really a life skill they cover in the foster system.”

This casual revelation is so contrary to the backstory Flint imagined for Silver--privileged, indulged--that he is given pause.

It strikes Flint that he doesn’t really know Silver at all. The qualities in Silver that Flint doesn’t despise--his cleverness, his charisma, even his straightforward and opportunistic nature--it’s as though they’ve been flipped and illuminated by a new light.

Silver leverages Flint's distraction and wiggles his arms free. Instead of extracting himself entirely, he reaches for something on the floorboards.

The photo.

It must have fallen out of Flint's pocket at some point, because Silver is holding the photo of Thomas and Miranda.

“What's this?”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry this update took so long. Life got kind of crazy for awhile. But the rest of this story is all drafted up, and the next chapter should be up in a week or so. There will be regular updates until the story is completed. Thanks for reading! 
> 
> This one's got some violence, and Flint being a miserable fuck.

* * *

 

 

_"Alone, alone, all, all alone,_

_Alone on a wide wide sea!_

_And never a saint took pity on_

_My soul in agony._

_The many men, so beautiful!_

_And they all dead did lie:_

_And a thousand thousand slimy things_

_Lived on; and so did I."_

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

* * *

 

 

 

“It’s nothing,” Flint grabs the paper out of Silver’s hands before he can open it.

From Silver’s expression, it’s  clear that he’s noticed the paper is far from ‘nothing’, and so Flint amends: “It doesn’t have anything to do with the job.”

Silver raises an eyebrow and waves a hand toward the desk, stacked with files and heavily marked print-outs: “You have a life outside of this?”

“I did,” Flint sits back on his ankles so he can slip the photograph back into his pocket.

He is about to clamber off of Silver and get to his feet, but finds Silver looking up at him with a sad sort of pity.

Just like that, Flint’s angry. Not at Silver--not exactly, anyway. Just Flint doesn’t need pity. He doesn’t need to be coddled or rescued from lonesome late nights with take-out food because someone feels bad for him.

Flint is _fine._ Flint is in _control._

“Life of crime not everything you thought it’d be?” Flint says, half-regretting his own cruel tone even as the words leave his mouth. “What the fuck did you expect?”

But Silver just laughs like Flint’s said something funny, rubbing at one of his wrists but otherwise making no move to rise from the carpet under Flint.

“I’m not cut out for a life of crime. Hate it, actually--being cooped up in this place. The shitty hours. The danger--always looking over my shoulder.”

Silver says all of this like he expects Flint--the man he stole from in order to further his criminal career--to actually give two shits as to why Silver has decided he now dislikes said criminal career.

To his surprise, Flint finds he rather does.

“Then why the fuck are you doing this?” He asks, baffled.

Flint is no more a caring man than he is a gentle or a generous one. But something about Silver awakens a curiosity in him--even if Flint suspects it might be the same twisted curiosity that slows traffic to a crawl past particularly gruesome car crashes by the side of the road.

“With that kind of money, I won’t have to answer to anyone ever again,” Silver says after a moment of thought. “I can go anywhere. Do anything I like.”

As he says it, Silver’s gaze rests on Flint’s face--Flint’s eyes, his lips.

It’s over in half a second, but the look is unmistakable--incendiary with desire and want and animal heat--broadcast with all the urgency of an SOS signal.

It’s gone before Flint can blink, but not before sending a wave of electricity down Flint’s spine like he’s been turned into a conduit. It settles, warm and contentedly curled in on itself, somewhere deep in his gut.

_Oh_.

Of all the eventualities Flint planned for, charting out contingencies upon contingencies, this was never one of them--after all, why bother carving out the firebreaks after everything  is already burned to sterile ash?

And fuck Flint sideways if that wasn’t some truly shitty reasoning on his part because now Flint doesn’t even know what to do with this newfound knowledge. The last time anything remotely like this happened, he’d tripped headlong into dating a polygamous power couple.

Just look how that turned out.

This is madness, Flint thinks. He is far too old to still be puzzling out his own heart like this.

“How often does an opportunity like that come along? That sort of _freedom_?” Silver is saying.

Flint-- beholden to none, free to roam the earth as he pleases--wants to say: _It isn’t enough._ It’s on the tip of his tongue.

Instead Flint  clambers to his feet,  hauling Silver up after him.

Maybe for Silver it will be different.

 

\---

 

Though his thoughts are muddled and confused as he retires to bed, Flint consoles himself with the knowledge that there is less than a week before the Gala. With the serenity of a man with his finger on the detonation trigger, Flint falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Flint’s peace of mind carries over until noon the next day, which is about when Silver backs up his claim of being unsuited to a life of crime by staggering through the door covered in blood.

 

\---

 

A car screeches to a halt outside, tires skidding with a scream of protest against the asphalt. Then Billy and Silver burst into the building.

Flint, unsettled and scrambling to get a handle on his being unsettled by taking command of the situation, demands: “What the fuck happened?”

Neither man immediately answers. Silver is shaking and strangely unfocused, face stark and pale above his dark t-shirt.  But what strikes Flint the most is Silver’s unnatural silence.

Flint takes the remaining stairs two at a time.

He hears Max gasp from somewhere behind him. Flint doesn’t understand why until, with a lurch of his stomach, Flint realizes that Silver’s shirt is actually white-- that he had only mistaken it for a darker color in the dim twilight of the warehouse because the front of it is almost entirely soaked through with blood.

Silver’s hands are red with it.

It isn’t until Flint is standing practically in front of him that Silver seems to register Flint’s presence at all.Silver flinches, eyes skittering briefly over Flint before focusing back on some distant horizon.

“Don’t,” He crosses his arms across his chest, folding into himself as he shakes his head jerkily. “I’m not hurt.”

“Where’s Gates?” Max asks. “And Muldoon--he was with you too. Where is he?”

Silver shakes his head again--another one of those convulsive jerks, but doesn't elaborate. So Flint leaves Silver to Max and turns to Billy.

“Muldoon is dead.”

Flint’s mind goes perfectly, utterly still.

Then-- _Gates_ , he thinks. “And Gates?”

“He's out taking care of the--” Billy glances over to Silver ”--he’s taking care of it.”

Billy recounts the incident with cold precision--he, Gates, and Muldoon were going on reconnaissance. Bored and stir-crazy, Silver asked to come along. And, sick of one other's company after many, _many_ similar and boring excursions, they had agreed.

Only this time, someone was waiting for them.

“It wasn’t law enforcement. Some sort of private security team.”

“How many?”

“Five. At least three of them had military training.” Billy says. “They must have known who we were, because they just started shooting.”

“I tried to get us out of there as fast as I could, but one of the bastards winged Muldoon,” Billy looks over to Silver again.  “He was in the back seat with Silver, and--fuck-- It was just his arm. I didn’t even think it was that bad until I looked back in the rearview and saw--”

Billy wavers for just a second, swiping a hand over his upper lip before gathering himself once more.

“The bullet hit his brachial artery. We--Silver tried to stop the bleeding.  I tried to get us to an ER, but by the time we got anywhere close to a hospital he was gone. We switched cars. Gates is taking care of it,” Billy repeats.

“Where’s Gates now?” Flint asks.

Billy tells him, adding a warning:“Someone’s on to us, Flint.”

Flint looks at Max’s wide eyes, Billy’s too-blank face. And Flint looks at Silver.

A day ago, Flint was getting Silver measured for a suit. Less than twelve hours ago, Silver brought him dinner and sat on the floor for hours just so Flint wouldn’t be alone.

Now look at him, Flint thinks.

Max has settled Silver into a chair, shell-shocked like one of those black and white photographs from World War one--boy soldiers in trenches. Flint thinks back to just the night before, how  he had--stupidly, _foolishly_ thought--

_No_ , Flint thinks.

Because what a pitiful creature Flint must be to think that this was allowed--that he might have this.

“Stay here,” Flint tells Billy and Max. “You see trouble, call me. If it looks bad, get out of here. Get to Eleanor.”

Flint turns and walks out  the door.

 

\----

 

There is a savage kind of pleasure  in unleashing glorious hell. Perhaps this is true for all creatures like him--blunt instruments made for war.

It was done.

Flint had found Gates, and they took care of the men that shot Muldoon--unfortunately without learning anything about why they were shooting at Flint’s team in the first place. Even without this knowledge,  action would normally partially satisfy him, yet something in Flint remains stubbornly unsettled.

Reluctant to make his return to the warehouse, Flint ponders all of this while slumped down in the entryway of Miranda’s townhouse-- where something in Flint’s exhausted brain had taken one look at the unwelcoming floor next to Miranda’s chocolate-brown riding boots in the shoe tray and said-- _yes, I rather think this will do_.

Now it is half-past nine at night, Miranda is not yet home, and Flint’s phone is dead. So Flint  is passing the time by second-guessing himself while trying not to move too much lest he aggravate the untreated knife-wound raked across his chest.

Blunt instruments of war, Flint thinks with a wince as he presses a hand to the cloth wrapped haphazardly over it, do not have the longest of life expectancies.

And Flint is getting old.

What feels like decades later, but is probably closer to a quarter of an hour, Flint hears footsteps.

When Miranda keys open the front door, she looks entirely unsurprised to find Flint there, looking down at him like he is some beloved but half-wild pet--prone to frequent wanderings and unpredictable homecomings.

“Let’s get you inside then.” She says. “Come on, up. Up.”

As they make their slow and clumsy way further inside--”Christ you’re heavier than you look. James, get your feet right and help me.”-- a wave of the melancholy nostalgia that always seems to find him whenever he visits Miranda's home washes over Flint.

They house itself is different, but the furniture and the artwork on the walls are not much changed from when Thomas and Miranda had the flat in London. Right down to the smell of the place--lavender and powdery fresh linen.  

Flint doesn't know how Miranda can stand it.

Even after all of this time and an ocean’s worth of distance, the sense-memory of the place is enough that the dumb, dog-loyal part of Flint’s brain always  expects to find Thomas just around the next corner. Or to walk into the living room to find Thomas sitting there with his long body curled into the armchair under the window.

Maybe it starts feeling less haunted with the simple passing of time but, despite Miranda's frequent invitations, Flint doesn’t spend much time there--preferring to take her out or host her himself.

Having finally made it to the kitchen, Miranda steers them toward the bar table where Flint slumps gratefully into one of the stools. He stretches out his stiff legs as Miranda turns to his bandages.

She picks carefully at the rags--a cheerful, yellow button up shirt in a past life-- tied sloppily  around Flints chest. “Well, This clearly wasn't done at a hospital.”

“I doubt he had any sort of medical credentials,” Flint hisses through his teeth as Miranda peels cotton away from his tacky skin. “And he may have been drunk.”

She pulls away the last of the bandages and stops, staring at his chest.

“James.”

Flint brings up his own hands to cover hers, resting together just under the ugly-looking  wound that makes it look like someone’s tried to underline his collarbones in a jagged, meaty red line. She presses her hands to him--a tactile confirmation of Flint’s solidity.

“We’ll be done soon,” Flint promises, squeezing her hands gently. “Less than a week.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Miranda shakes her head, smiling in a way that is not in the least way happy. “We can leave. I have a job offer up in Boston.”

It's an old argument between them.

Before Flint’s even opened his mouth to reply, Miranda must read the answer in his face. She pulls her hands free and her mouth tightens to a thin white line.

When Thomas was still alive, Flint and Miranda spent so much of their time as a united front of sensibility--a stolid sea wall of pragmatism wrapped around Thomas’s idealism.

Which makes it so fucking _ridiculous_ \--so absurd that Flint can’t begin to understand Miranda now. Can’t wrap his head around Miranda not wanting the same kind of justice as Flint does anymore than he can understand her living in these haunted rooms.

Flint knows that the sting of betrayal he feels at her absence is more than irrational--it’s unfair. But time hasn’t eroded the bone-deep affection he holds for her, and not having her at his side is rather like waking up each day, surprised anew at the absence of his own left arm.

In Miranda’s face, Flint sees his own sadness mirrored back.

“You could--” She says.

“I can't.”

To her credit, Miranda doesn't say anything as trite as: _this isn't what he would have wanted._ She never has.

“I can't stand to lose you too,” she says instead, briskly turning from him to rummage under the sink. “And every time I open my front door, I'm scared that I’m going to find you there dead, bled out all over my shoes. ”

She emerges with a plastic first aid kit. “Or worse--that you'll just vanish one day, and I’ll never know what happened.”

Flint wants to say that he wouldn't let that happen, that even if Flint died of course she would at least know about it. But maybe that isn’t entirely true. If Flint were shot like Muldoon was today, dumped naked and anonymous in some in some backwater ditch, who would tell her?

Miranda tears open an alcohol wipe and cleans Flints chest with merciless efficiency.

And when Flint makes an abortive sort of gasp at the sting, she suggests sweetly: “Perhaps either stop being such a baby, or stop getting stabbed.”

 

\----

 

Later--much later, Flint lingers far longer than he should--Flint leaves Miranda and returns to the warehouse.

Because he honestly expected Silver to turn tail and run--and had already been making contingencies for this in his head-- Flint is taken aback to walk up into the office to find Silver curled up on the leather sofa just like that first night.

Before Flint can retreat, Silver opens his eyes and blinks slowly up at him.

There’s a mostly-empty bottle of rum on the floor--Max’s favorite. Silver’s feet are bare and his toenails appear to be painted a deep, vivid red--also Max’s favorite.

“What happened to you?” Silver asks after a few more heavy, thoughtful seconds, as though it had taken this long to send the signal from his brain to his mouth.

In that moment, Flint realizes two things. One--Silver is still _very_ drunk . And two-- he himself must look terrible.

Flint’s hands are bruised to shit, with a few of the knuckles busted open on the right. His shirt is torn, clearly exposing the mummy-bandages Miranda wrapped around his chest under his armpits. And Flint hadn’t looked in a mirror, but he’d caught glimpses of his reflection on the way over from Miranda’s--seen his own face, hard and savage and strange, staring back at him.

Instead of losing interest and falling back to sleep like a helpful sort of drunk might, Silver continues to stare like it is not Flint that wandered into the room, but some strange and a wild beast.

Let him stare, Flint thinks. Let him see.

This--more than the Flint in the tailor shop, or Flint running heists with Gates, or even Flint back when he was still James McGraw--this is Flint in the simplest terms.

“I took care of the men that killed Muldoon.” Flint tells him when Silver looks as though he’s about to begin the laborious process of formulating a question.

“Oh.”

Silver has to stop and think about this for a few seconds.

“Good,” He decides.

“Get up,” Flint says.

Silver frowns.

“Up, Silver,” Flint insists. “I’m too tired to drive. I’m going to set up the pull out couch and make sure you don’t choke on your own vomit in your sleep.”

Silver lurches up. Clearly he hadn’t realized the couch was pull out, because he watches Flint turn it into a queen-sized bed, saucer-eyed like Flint’s just pulled a marching band out of his ass and led it out the door and down the street in a rousing chorus of _auld lang syne_.

“ _Bed_ ,” Silver says, the same way that a starving man might say ‘ _sandwich_ ’, and laughs. “If you wanted to sleep with me, you could have just asked.”

Silver clambers atop the bare mattress before Flint has the chance to unfold the fitted sheet, still laughing. “Less hassle.”

Flint tries to decide whether it’s worth it to make Silver get up again so he can make the bed properly, finding himself oddly heartened by Silver’s demented flirting. It’s nice to see Silver somewhat closer to normal, even if Silver at normal irritates Flint at a chemical level.

Flint stares at the sheets in his hands.

_God,_ he’s tired.

Fuck it, Flint thinks, throwing one of the blankets at Silver’s head before climbing in next to him.

“That wasn’t a no,” Silver says, tugging the blanket around himself until he resembles an enormous, man-sized cocoon.

“I can still throw you off of a building when this is over,” Flint reminds him. “Go to sleep.”

“You wouldn’t,” Silver mumbles into the mattress.

“Sleep, Silver.”

Silver does.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Real cuddling, fake kissing, and some long-overdue exposition. Miranda and Flint talk about loss and the nature of love. Silver fights the hangover from hell and realizes that Flint is, by all practical measures, a Bond villain.

Flint wakes and does not immediately know where he is. There is an unfamiliar bed,  a warm arm across his chest and someone’s head tucked into his ribs.

Although the blankets have been donkey-kicked into a ratnest tangle and the room is cold enough to raise gooseflesh on his arms, Flint has no immediate desire to do anything but lay there in the dark and blink up at the ceiling, feeling a tender and cozy sort of stillness he hasn’t experienced in a very long time. Caught up in the foggy twilight between sleep and wakefulness where muscle memory throws off some of the constraints of reason, Flint reaches down and--without thinking--runs a hand down his bedfellow’s back.

There is a contented sigh.

Flint begins to absently draw shapes and abstract patterns-- runes and flowers. Tallships and crescent moons and a shark. It is only when he is tracing out a more complex, geometric pattern that Flint registers  the broadness and muscularity of the back--the dark, sleep-mussed hair.

_Shit._

Flint stops abruptly, his hand hovering just over Silver’s skin.

Silver groans unhappily at this and then, as he rises to wakefulness to meet the full brunt of his hangover head-on,  groans again--this time in pain and regret.

“Oh _god_.”

“That would be the rum.”

“Just take me out back to the car park and shoot me. I had a nice life.”

“If I wouldn’t throw you off of a building, why would I shoot you?” Flint asks, smiling a little because sometimes his cruelty gets the better of him. “I need what’s in your head. You’ll just have to suffer.”

Flint watches as, after several attempts, Silver finally wretches the blanket out from where it had twisted under his body in the night and throws it over his head with a grunt. A few crazed coils of Silver’s hair protrude out of the top.

Flint feels inclined to reach out and touch them.

“Gates swears by the garbage plates at the local diner for hangovers. Go out and buy yourself one.”

Silver makes a sort of retching sound, like a vomiting cat, so Flint untangles himself from the blankets and pushes up out of bed. He  tells his own protesting aches and pains that they can go fuck themselves because no one is throwing up on  his office couch this morning, thank you very much.

He retrieves the rubbish bin from by the desk and sets it on the ground next to Silver before making his way to the bathroom.

“Here,” upon his return, Flint sets the water and bottle of aspirin on the table, well within groping distance. “Stay. I need to work.”

In deference to Silver’s head, Flint keeps the curtains drawn and the lights dim as he works through the morning.

 

\----

 

Beyond getting the schedule, Flint has no intention of further involving Silver-- and certainly no intention of continuing their ruse of a relationship to bolster his cover.

He simply doesn’t know how a traumatized Silver will react should danger present itself and-- given the valuable information locked away inside Silver’s head-- Flint could hardly afford to put Silver at risk in the first place.

Furthermore, Flint will be subject to greater scrutiny from the rest of the team now--every action second-guessed after one of their own has been killed under his command. Flint has become, if not an object of outright distrust since the ambush, certainly one of suspicion.

He sees it in the way Billy and Dufresne both regard him with cool appraisal when they think he isn’t looking. Worse still, Gates--generally an excellent barometer forecasting the attitude of the group -- has begun to glance in his direction in a very similar manner.

If Flint isn’t careful, he may soon have a mutiny on his hands.

Given the tense atmosphere at the warehouse Flint  is happy to make his way out to the car lot that afternoon unhindered and in one piece.  But then, in a god-awful stroke of bad timing, Silver catches Flint just as he is about to get into his car.

“Where are you going?”

Flint hadn’t seen Silver at all since that morning--hadn’t even realized he was in the car lot until he spoke, the grey of his shirt almost the same color of the shadowed concrete wall behind him.  The reason he hasn’t seen Silver since this morning is that  apparently Silver has been out here all day, loitering like a poorly-socialized feral teenager and--if the spent filters at his feet are any indication--chain smoking like one too.

“Recon,” Flint explains, climbing into the driver’s seat.

Before Flint can lock the doors, Silver-- running on jittery nervous energy and nicotine, moving faster than Flint thought possible--throws himself into the passenger seat like the car is the last lifeboat on a sinking ship.

“I’m coming with you.”

Flint gives him a black look, but Silver--who has either developed immunity from repeated exposure or is simply too wired to care-- ignores him: “That’s at least a two man job.”

“That,” Flint points out with more patience than he feels, “doesn’t mean that it’s _your_ job. Why are you volunteering?”

Silver looks at him like Flint is the kind of brainless miracle they write medical textbooks about.

There is a matching edge to his voice when he says: “Muldoon was my _friend_. That may be hard for you to understand, since you don’t seem to have or want any. But those guys in that warehouse? They’re my friends too--I can’t let that happen to anyone else.”

This stops Flint short.

Flint has never been a particularly social man, but Silver seems to _need_ people in a way Flint doesn’t think he himself will ever understand.

Flint thinks of how Silver knew everyone’s names by day two. Of Silver’s toes painted in Max’s polish, and of takeout dinner from Flint’s favorite restaurant. He thinks of that morning, when something feathered in Flint’s chest had cracked open, just as easy as Silver’s languorous, sleep-warm form curling into his side .

And Flint thinks of how, up until this moment, he had _known_ that all of that friendliness--all of that charm-- was a kind of lie in the same way he knew gravity was a universal constant. That it was all was nothing more than some smoke-and-mirror hustle of whatever con Silver’s trying to run.

Suddenly, Flint’s not so sure of that.

Again he is struck by the thought that he doesn’t really know Silver at all, except perhaps as one of those slippery, impossible objects--as though Silver were a stubborn set of Penrose steps or a particularly capricious devil’s fork. Because as soon as Flint thinks he has everything about Silver fixed in a way that makes sense, the perspective shifts--it all turns sideways, and Flint is left afloat, drifting and unmoored when he should be in free-fall.

Flint shakes his head-- _No_ \--because if he opens his mouth to speak, he is certain some part of this will spill out--and Flint will have to go _kill something or maybe throw himself under bus_ because since when was he this _pathetic_?

“No,” Silver says, wrenching in his seat so he is turned to face Flint.

Aside from drinking himself sick that night, Silver’s acted remarkably composed since Muldoon’s death. But now that they are alone in the car, out of sight from the rest of the team, Flint can see that Silver is a man clinging to that control with bloody tooth and nail. From the soles of his worn-down chucks to his wild hair, he vibrates with an desperate, frenetic energy that somehow makes him look simultaneously exhausted and manic.

“Flint, no,” Silver repeats himself when Flint doesn’t respond. “I need more than that.”

He waits expectantly.

“Do you know what the schedule is--why it’s so important?” Flint finally asks.

“Do I--?” Silver’s laugh is bitter and humorless. “No one’s told me _anything_ \--I still don’t even really know who _Eleanor_ is. So no, I don’t know why the schedule is so fucking important.”

Flint takes a deep breath through his nose, letting it out slowly through his mouth.

“On the night of the Gala, the Hamilton corporation is going to meet with an anonymous buyer. An _unimaginably_ large sum of money will change hands.”

Flint holds up his own hand, stymieing Silver’s interruption.

“What the Hamilton family is buying with this money is the reassurance that certain documents--documents held by this anonymous buyer--will never see the light of day.”

“They’re being blackmailed?” Silver breaks in, impatient. “So what does that--”

“That schedule in your head,” Flint cuts him off, reaching over to rap Silver’s temple with two fingers, “is the schedule to the rotating encryption key that will be used to complete the transaction.”

“So you’re going to use it to intercept the money--divert it to another account?”

“Exactly,” Flint nods. “They don’t know we have it. But--thanks to your _brilliant_ plan--the only way we can do that now is by keeping your head in one piece.”

Silver is taking too long to make any sort of response--frowning thoughtfully out of the front window without giving any indication he plans to get out of the car--so Flint lays it out in simpler terms: “I need you to stay here because _if you die today_ , _none of that will happen_ \-- I don’t get the documents, no one gets paid.”

_What I_ **_do_ ** _get is shot in the back of the head and dumped in the river. And that’s If I’m lucky_ \--Flint thinks.

There is another long pause as Silver mulls this over, looking slightly less unhinged but still obviously frustrated at his own delegation to such a passive role.

_“Silver.”_

“Fine,” Silver finally relents, but not without slamming the door so hard that the car rocks on its axle.

He storms back to the warehouse without a second glance.

  


\----

 

“You seem different today,” Miranda tells him over the ‘ _sorry for bleeding on your shoes’_  lunch that Flint invites her to after the recon is done.

This doubles as an ‘ _I’m about to do something ill-advised and dangerous and might die, so I’d rather like to see you_ ’ lunch.

They’re sitting on the same side of the booth, tucked away into the corner by the window so they can watch the world go by.

“Well, I am in a better state than when you last saw me,” Flint points out.

He thinks but doesn’t add: _For example, no one has tried to stab me in at least twenty-three hours,_ because that’s just not the sort of thing a man is supposed to say, sitting with a lady in a Michelin-star restaurant.

“Thanks to you, mostly--I’m sorry for having imposed like that.”

“Nonsense,” Miranda waves a hand dismissively. “You are _always_ welcome, and that will never change.”

She peers at him curiously with her soft, brown eyes: “But it’s something more besides that--I can’t put my finger on it.”

Curious, her entire body seems to ask the question--she leans into him, so close that Flint can see the tiny laughter lines he loves, at the corners of her eyes. Flint doesn’t move away.

“When I think about the future,” Flint says slowly, struggling to give shape to his thoughts in a way that makes sense, “there used to be this big blank space where life after this job with Hamilton was meant to be--and now that’s not true anymore.”

Miranda looks surprised.

“James,” She reaches out to takes his hand. Then, like she’s read his mind: “That’s not a _bad_ thing. Moving on with your life doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten Thomas, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Flint stares at her, thinking hard.

Anyone else would look away, but Miranda meets his gaze. Then again if it were anyone else, Flint would have snatched back his hand by now--he doesn’t let anyone else invade his space like this--but it’s Miranda. Flint doesn’t really understand what they are to each other-- doesn’t even know if he could ever find a word for it--but Flint is reminded now how glad he is to have her.

“Have you met someone?” Miranda asks carefully.

“Have _you_?” But from the way she asks it, Flint already knows.

Miranda actually _blushes._ She looks down and says: “It’s early still, but yes--yes I think I have.”

Flint doesn’t know what to say.

He is happy for Miranda, he really is, but that doesn’t make the sudden sting hurt any less. Because everything will change--and they’ve known each other for so long, have ceded such vast tracts of themselves to one another, that Flint can’t even begin to imagine what divisions he might have to make.

Flint knows that he doesn’t have any claim to the possessive jealousy he feels--after all, she _should_ be moving on. Flint just can’t help but wonder what that will look like, especially after the Gala. Will she ever spend the night at his apartment again? Will Flint still be allowed to drop in and sweep Miranda away to the art galleries she loves, or the long dinners that stretch easily into the early hours of the morning?

Miranda eyes look dangerously watery.

“And you’re happy?” Miranda nods. “Then I’m happy for you too.”

“I met him last month at a fundraiser for a charity that builds schools,” Miranda says as Flint lays his arm around her shoulders in an awkwardly sideways hug that she leans into like a cat. “He runs a corporate watchdog organization. We actually began spending time together because of the work he’s doing investigating the Hamilton companies.”

“Oh?”

Flint is surprised.

He’d known Miranda was trying to expose some of the environmental and gross human rights violations carried out under the Hamilton name--essentially taking the moral high road while Flint debased himself, stumbling down along the low one--but he hadn’t known about _this._

“He is an absolutely lovely man. You’ll have to meet him sometime--oh, don’t look at me like that James.”

“We’ll see,” Flint says diplomatically.

“I’m finally _letting_ myself be happy again. It’s--” Miranda pauses, struggling--uncharacteristically-- to for the words. “Being married to Thomas taught me that love can be shared. But it’s still taken me a very long time to realize that what I’m feeling now--it doesn’t lessen the love I felt for Thomas. Or the love I have for you.”

She snatches one of the cloth napkins off the table.

“Oh, this is stupid,” Miranda laughs, dabbing at her eyes so she doesn’t smudge her makeup. “Look at us--a pair of old fools. Distract me--tell me about yours.”

She takes one look at Flint’s face and says: “Now where’s that wine menu?

 

\---

 

Although they are rare, when they do come over him, Flint’s affections tend to be of a deep and all-consuming kind. They have never been well-timed, and they have never been well-behaved.

The problem, as Flint sees it, is that he’d muddied everything up by  pretending to have a relationship with Silver from the start. He now has no means to distinguish the facade from reciprocal affection on Silver’s part--the changeable and mercenary nature of Silver himself further tangling the Gordian knot.

And finally, instead of helping matters, Flint’s own stubborn denial--refusing to believe that he was even capable of such sentiments-- has allowed Silver to permeate everything, soaking through like gasoline.

Now Flint can hardly even stand in place without risking a spark.

After he gives a rough sketch of his circumstances, Miranda pats him sympathetically on the arm.

“Oh, James. It’s never simple with you, is it?”

 

\-----

 

If this problem is a Gordian knot, it is one that Flint clearly does not have time to examine.

However, Flint’s resolution to put these thoughts aside for now-- to wait until after the Gala -- is tested almost as soon as he steps back into the warehouse after returning from his lunch.

He has just enough time to register that _Eleanor_ is here--standing by the table with an imposing man Flint has never seen before--when someone sidles up beside Flint, wrapping an arm around his waist and drawing him into a passionate kiss.

Flint relaxes only when Silver draws back from the kiss  to whisper into Flint’s ear, just as he had in the mason-jar hipster restaurant: “ _Trust me_.”

Louder, so that everyone can hear, Silver adds: "There you are, _love_. How was lunch with your friend?”

_Love?_ Flint thinks, and: _What the hell is going on?_

He is disturbed by the frank, piercing gaze of Eleanor’s companion. A pair of nearly colorless pale blue eyes peer out unblinkingly from under heavy brows. With the man’s prominent, aquiline nose it gives the stranger an unsettlingly direct, hawkish look.

Eleanor is clearly tense, and Silver is impossible to read. Clearly they are running a cover, but to what purpose--who is this man?

“Lunch was good,” Flint says. “I don’t think I’ve met our guest?”

“James,” Eleanor says. “This is Charles Vane. Charles, this is James-- _he and his partner John are the ones renovating this property into condos.”_

Silver sighs, affected and lovesick: “Well, we took one look at the view from the eastern windows, and we knew we just  _had_ to have it.”

He sounds so convincing that Flint would believe the lie--that Silver really does find a kind of beauty in  the industrial charm of the building-- if Silver hadn’t already told Flint that he hated the sight of the fucking place.

“Isn’t that right, darling?”

“I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I can never say no to you.” As an afterthought, Flint adds: ”...dear.”

Silver smiles, looking so utterly delighted by this that Vane is distracted.

Flint takes the opportunity to shoot Eleanor an inquiring look: “And what is your interest in this, Mr. Vane--should I be trying to sell you one of our units? We’re a long way out from construction, but John’s already got a great pitch.”

“Oh, no,” Eleanor jumps in before Vane can speak. “Charles was just curious what the Nassau company was doing with this site. I suppose you could say he works security for--which venture was it again? One of the Hamilton subsidiaries, right?”

“I won’t bore you with the details,” Vane turns his attention back to Flint with a smile, cold and assessing as a crocodile sizing up potential prey. “We’ve recently become _very_ interested in this property.”

There is a tense, barely perceptible pause before he adds: "But seeing as how it’s already being developed, we won’t be making an offer.”

“Personally though,” Vane says, rubbing his hands together in a ' _let's make a deal_ ' kind of way, “I might be convinced to invest in a condo. I’m sure you’d be happy to show me around?”

  


\---

  


When Vane and Eleanor finally depart, Flint alone is left to comb the warehouse for bugs--Silver is not particularly helpful and everyone else had scattered to the winds at Eleanor’s urgent phone call just preceding the unexpected visit, and have yet to return.

“--and darling, you wouldn’t believe what the neighbors said to me--” Silver, who has been instructed to keep in character until Flint gives the all clear, has taken this to mean he should be speaking non-stop.

Flint doesn’t mind, mostly ignoring the words until it the stream of chatter drops into a pleasant sort of background accompaniment to his search.

Flint plucks a final bug from inside a partially-framed door as Silver says: “--which is why I’ve always thought that we should _adopt_ \--”

Flint drops the bug into the Styrofoam crate packed with dishtowels, closing the lid and sealing it with packing tape: “Stop, Silver.”

“Right,” Silver says. “But now I’m curious--if we did adopt, what would you want to name the kids?”

“I have a box full of top-of-the-line surveillance equipment someone just planted in my building. I am about to steal an inordinate amount of money from a very powerful, very vindictive man-- so long as no one on my own team _shanks_ me first," Flint says, setting the bug cooler on the table.  "So-- Silver-- I am not going to name our hypothetical, adopted children.”

“I guess we could foster instead,” Silver shrugs. He gestures to the box and, in a more somber tone, he adds: “At least that explains who shot at us.”

“Maybe,” Flint stares thoughtfully at the Styrofoam lid.

Flint is so wrapped up in who Vane might be--whether or not he is connected to the shooting, how dangerous he might be--that he doesn’t recognize Silver’s worryingly contemplative silence until it’s too late.

Flint looks up to find Silver regarding him with a curious expression on his face.

When he speaks, Flint forgets to breath--feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.

Because, oh, Flint has been careless.

And Silver is very, _very_ clever.

“Flint,“ Silver asks, ”why do we need the blackmail documents? Why not just take the money?”

Flint, cursing his earlier slip of the tongue, scrambles for something to say-- _There might be something of value in the files? We could extort them for more money?_  

Nothing seems passable, and his thoughts are  moving at a glacial pace--befitting of how cold Flint suddenly feels.

“--and it wasn’t _we_ don’t get the documents,” Silver continues. “It was that if I die, **_you_ ** don’t get them.”

“What do you care?” Flint asks. “You’ll get your payout--your big ticket to freedom-- with or without those files.”

“But this isn’t just about the money for you, is it?  You’re going to--what--blackmail them a second time?”

Before Flint can reply, Silver corrects himself: “No, wait. That’s not it--you’re going to leak the documents, aren’t you?”

Flint can’t seem to think of a single lie to explain away his reasons. Moreover --and more worryingly--Flint finds that he doesn’t want to lie in the first place. 

Finally, Flint nods. 

It feels like a confession.

“Holy shit,” Silver _gapes_ at him.

“Do you know what that’s going to _do_? If those files are as incriminating as you think--if they go down because of this, you’re going to fucking--I don’t know-- tip the world economy into a recession.”

Silver runs a hand through his hair.

“That’s insane. _You’re_ insane. Why do that? No offense, but you aren’t really the truth-at-any-cost, for-the-good-of-humanity type.”

  
“Because Alfred Hamilton,” Flint says simply, “is going to live out the rest of his miserable days penniless, rotting in a prison cell and wishing I’d killed him when I had the chance. “


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flint thinks the economy can go fuck itself, and Gates questions Flint's sanity.

Of all Flint’s once-expansive ambitions, this alone remains: the utter ruination of the man that put Thomas in the ground. 

So Silver’s economy can  _ go fuck itself _ . Flint would raze cities to the ground, wage a one-man war against the world--He would throw himself to hell if it meant dragging Alfred Hamilton down.

But when Silver speaks, his voice is quieter than it was before: “Flint, why are you doing this?

Silver is watching him and Flint can’t pinpoint what seems so different about this until he realizes that Silver is, for once, entirely serious. 

Devoid of any of his characteristic humor or cockiness--Silver looks almost dangerous. His face is curiously changed in the dim, cavernous space--the golden fingers of the setting sun slipping through the high windows to throw everything into stark, chiaroscuro relief like a Caravaggio painting. 

But of course Silver is dangerous, Flint thinks. 

Because here he is--drowning in gasoline, and all he wants to do is hand Silver the match. 

“When I first met the Hamiltons, it was just after I left the Navy. I started working for a security firm that was contracted by Alfred Hamilton,” Flint starts.

Flint still remembers the first time he’d seen them. 

They had seemed such spoilt, indulged things--so out of touch with the mundane pains of reality. Certainly attractive, but Flint first thought it was the kind of attractive that came from a life of cosseted privilege-- never wanting for anything, never going without.

Ostensibly, Thomas was interested in protecting the rights of the workers they employed abroad, and reducing the environmental impact of the outsourced manufacturing. 

Like most everyone who met Thomas and dismissed him in the same breath, Flint assumed that this was nothing more than a figurehead position--that the job was a sort of plaything for Thomas, something  to be abandoned when he grew bored or the next glittering and expensive distraction came along--a stupidly enormous yacht or new fascination with greek sculpture or maybe even Flint, if the way Thomas looked at him was any indication. 

Flint never should have done it, he knows that. But back then, everything about Thomas irritated Flint--from his overindulged naivete to his sheltered philosophical musings, untempered by the furnace of experience. So he never should have done it, but  when Flint learned Thomas had never even  _ been to _ any of the manufacturing plants he was supposedly managing, Flint booked them a flight.  

But instead of turning away from the horrors there, Thomas opened his pockets without a second thought--Thomas went and opened a  _ fucking school _ . 

Something shifted inside of Flint’s chest then, like a lock tumbler finally sliding into place-- opening. Miranda’s  _ I told you so _ look-- half amused, half proud--felt like an invitation. 

After that, everything changed. 

“Thomas was going to gut everything that his father had worked so hard to build,” Flint says. “It would have ruined them financially, but he thought it was the right thing to do. Of course Hamilton grew suspicious, and began investigating Thomas--probing for any trace of disloyalty or weakness.”

And Hamilton found Flint, twisting him into the linchpin of Thomas’ downfall--the dark hinge upon which the entire wretched scheme turned.

“Our relationship was exposed. Thomas was torn apart in the press--‘rich, closeted playboy cheats on wife’,” Flint says. “We thought we could ride out the storm. We had no way of knowing it was only an opening move.”

“I was dismissed, of course-- no other security company would touch me. We couldn’t have known it then, but even as we tried to let the scandal blow over, Hamilton was laying the groundwork for Thomas’ ruin.” 

“Witnesses were bought--claiming they’d seen Thomas distressed, confused or yelling like he was talking to someone who wasn’t there. These were neighbors, acquaintances--people Thomas had considered friends.”

“Again, we underestimated Hamilton--We thought he was only trying to have Thomas declared unfit,” Flint shakes his head. “Even that, we could have handled, but then Hamilton did something none of us would have expected--something I never thought he’d do.”

Flint pauses, taking a breath before continuing: “He found a psychiatrist who was willing to testify that Thomas had come into her office and made a confession. She claimed that the stress of the scandal had forced Thomas into a mental breakdown--that he was hearing things. That he had plans to kill his father, then himself.”

“Thomas was arrested, then committed to a psychiatric hospital. The evidence was overwhelming-- the confession, the witnesses--all of it watertight. All of it brokered by Hamilton’s right hand. There were even receipts for a gun, tied to Thomas’s credit card, and these rambling documents on his computer about his father--none of which he’d written.”

“We were fighting it, of course, Miranda and I. And we would have kept fighting it, but Thomas was...” Flint pauses again. 

“When Miranda finally had the chance to see him, he seemed confused-- they were drugging him, depriving him of sleep. Trying to get him desperate enough to make a confession.”

Flint looks away from Silver finally, looking up at the golden light fading in the windows. He notices, for some reason, how many of the panes are cracked or missing.

“And in the end, he couldn’t see any way out--save one.” 

Though they are not spoken loudly, the words seem to echo in the vast cathedral of the warehouse--like Flint’s in confession instead of a crumbling shipping outpost crouched over the east river. This is Flint’s millstone, dragging him down into the black--this is the albatross hanging around his neck. 

Because knowing Thomas had been like catching a glimpse into the brighter, kinder world Flint never really believed in before--had never thought was possible. Men like Thomas didn’t kill themselves -- they got their names carved into the classical marble facades of ivy-league science buildings built on their trust funds. 

And it all comes down to a single idea, simple as the edge of a knife--that Flint might have done something differently. 

It is one of those things too big to circumscribe with words-- the Hamilton empire lived on, and so did Flint. 

In the end Flint simply says: “After he died, Miranda and I escaped and made our way here. She found a job, and I found Gates.”

Finding Gates was easier than he anticipated. 

Flint spent a month vetting local drug dealers--buying prodigious quantities of pot he never intended to smoke and, on one memorable occasion, getting wretchedly high on acid in the back of someone’s town-car--Flint had finally found a drug dealer willing to make an introduction to a supplier. This supplier knew an art forger, and the art forger was willing to tell him the name of a certain bar.

And in the bar Flint finally found exactly, precisely what he had been looking for--Gates, with his ready-made crew and the thoughtful look on his face as Flint whispered promises, sweet as a silver-tongued devil at the crossroads. 

“I convinced him I was someone worth listening to."

There is a long silence after Flint is done speaking. 

Listening to the muffled sounds of traffic, it occurs to Flint that this is the first time he’s told anyone the entire story--after all, the only other person he’d tell is Miranda, and she’d walked through that same hell with him stride for stride.

“I don’t know what to say,” Silver says when he finally speaks. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Flint says. “You asked me why I was doing this, and I thought you were entitled to the truth.”

“Flint,” Silver finally speaks. “I’m so sorry.” 

And it is the most genuine, empathetic thing Flint has ever heard him say.

  
  


\----

  
  


The night before the Gala, Silver returns from the final fitting at Rackham’s tailor shop.

He pokes his head into the office, where Flint and Silver are sitting across from one another at the desk--two glasses and a mostly-empty bottle of Gate’s gin between them. 

“Hey Gates,” Silver exchanges nods with Gates before waving a plastic  garment bag in Flint’s direction: “Got it. Rackham just finished earlier today.”

Careless, Silver seems to have forgotten that he is holding a suit worth more than anything he’s ever owned. Flint glares pointedly until Silver runs his free hand down the bag, smoothing it down like he’s petting a spooked horse. This dislodges some of the water clinging to its surface onto the carpet. Flint can hear the rain coming down on the roof, and it must be pouring outside because Silver is soaked through. 

“Okay,” Flint says. 

Maybe it’s the gin, but he can’t quite figure out why Silver has decided this was so important, or why he should still be standing in the doorway so expectantly. 

“So, just to clarify,” Silver says once it’s clear Flint isn’t going to break the silence. "You definitely  _ won’t _ be throwing me off of a building when this is all done?” 

With a strange certainty, Flint realizes that Silver is asking about something more than Flint’s murderous inclinations toward him. But what exactly that _something more_ might be, Flint isn’t sure.

So Flint doesn’t say anything, holding his hard expression and staring Silver down.  Flint can’t help himself.  Like most things with Silver, Flint finds himself acting not necessarily out of affectionate teasing or to mask deeper feelings--but simply to see what Silver will do. 

And with the tiniest shift of his expression, Silver smirks. 

It is small, and warm, and just for Flint. Flint finds himself fighting  the urge to grin back--his best shark’s-smile, all teeth. 

He holds fast. 

Silver finally leaves. But he can’t be entirely certain of Flint, since he looks back once over his shoulder--part of him still worried that Flint is not physically capable of any sort of teasing, and is  _ actually going to throw him off of building _ .

Only when Silver’s out of sight, Flint allows himself the smile. 

Gates looks across the table at him like Flint’s just sprouted a second head, but Flint doesn’t understand it either--uncertain why he should be so pleased with himself or, for that matter, why he’s in such a playful mood at all.

Flint is struck, suddenly, by a thought. 

_ This is real. _

All of it, and it’s happening  _ tomorrow _ . Hamilton will finally feel the full force of the maelstrom that Flint’s been tending with infinite patience.  Front row seats, with Silver at his side.

But none of it  _ feels _ real.

Flint’s heard account of people having out-of-body experiences when in shock or close to death--heart attacks and the like. Flint’s always thought he’d be far too pragmatic to ever experience something so fanciful.

Which makes it so utterly bizarre when Flint feels as though someone has reached deep into his head and flipped a switch there inside.  Like he's watching someone else, Flint sees himself  lower his forehead to the edge of the desk and, to his utter astonishment, laugh like he hasn’t in years. 

It wells up inside of his chest, filling up every last inch of him until he can’t even breath. His chest burns where the skin’s busy knitting back together and he tries to stop--he really does-- but it’s useless. 

Flint may as well try to stop an earthquake.

Gates doesn’t speak as the aftershocks of Flint’s laughing fit subside. 

He does, however, look at Flint like he’s just proposed that they elope to Canada and grow into geriatric, homosexual debauchery together, living out their golden years hustling industrial oil workers. 

The expression speaks for itself-- _you_ _ miserable son of a bitch, what the hell is wrong with you? _

  
As if Flint would even know where to fucking  _ start. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suits are worn. Flint kicks a door, swears a lot, and decides he hates opera. Things finally come to a head.

* * *

 

Flint has always enjoyed the ritual of stepping into a suit.

He’s heard it described as the modern-day equivalent of donning armor, and today Flint could almost imagine a kernel of truth in that hyperbole-- he is, after all, preparing for the deciding battle in a long, brutal war.

Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, if it is a warrior Flint sees, it is a weary one-- brutal-looking and rough-eyed.

He combs back his rust-colored hair--too long, he realizes. But  he can’t do anything about that now anymore than he can do anything about the cut bisecting his left eyebrow, making  it look as though someone has tried to gouge out Flint’s eye like a melon ball.

_Damage control_ , he thinks--just because Flint’s gone half-feral and now inspires thugs to try to scoop out his eyes like little balls of cantaloupe _doesn’t mean anyone else needs to know that._ Especially not the kind of people who shell out unreasonable sums of money for tickets to a charity opera.

Flint is neatly shaven and the suit is freshly pressed, so there’s no reason he can’t at least pass as civilized for a few hours.

He tries on one of the old, pleasant smiles in the mirror, but finds that his reflection won’t cooperate. All of the correct elements are present, but somehow the overall effect is more devious than diplomatic-- he looks like a snake trying to hide its fangs. The grimace is so strange that it is like seeing a stranger in the mirror--perhaps one trying to sell him something--so he lets the ill-fitting smile run off of his face like water.

The suit, at least, is still passable.

It is not one of Rackham’s creations, but an anachronism from another time, bought and worn by another Flint--one who went to corporate parties to make small, polite  talk over wine and pretend he wasn’t wearing his civility like an itching second skin.

The suit is the molten grey of the ocean lit by a low winter sun-- of salt-water turned to iron in a trick of the light. Flint finds it suits him well.

If not as finely constructed as one of Rackham’s creations, there is a certain solidity to the jacket which manages to conceal that Flint is now a good deal leaner than he once was. And with the sleeves correctly fastened over his wrists, hardly anyone will be the wiser.

Flint reaches for his cuff-links--two small rectangles of green agate set in dark-plated copper. Decidedly understated and easy to overlook at first glance, but captivating enough in their own dark way once their subtle sheen becomes apparent.

The right goes on without any trouble, but the left is decidedly more stubborn.

After a few more abortive tries Flint decides that in this case, armor might have been preferable-- at least then there was no fucking around with cuff-links, and he’d be out the door by now. As it stands however, Flint can’t even dress himself, Silver hasn’t come down yet, and they should have left for the Strand five minutes ago-- so by Flint’s reckoning the night is off to a fucking _perfect_ start.

Of course, were he aware of the trials that awaited him in the coming hours, Flint would not waste his time on these trivialities. As it is, Flint finds that the ritual of dressing at least provides his hands with something productive to do as he waits.

Eventually after some fiddling,  Flint swears that he has the damned left cuff fastened-- but then the cuff-link goes and falls to the floor with a cheerful ‘plink’.

He reaches down to find it on the tile and when he stands back up and glances in the mirror, he catches sight of Silver on  the stairs.

There is another ‘plink’--Flint doesn’t really hear it this time--as the cuff-link falls to the porcelain sink.

Because if seeing Silver in the suit back at Rackham’s shop was a surprise, seeing him wear it now--tailored to fit and each line falling immaculately even as Silver moves--is a revelation.

Silver looks like a different man.

The color--the fathomless navy of the sky turning full-dark at day’s end, just before the light is gone--is perfect. In a modestly dark bowtie, with his curls elegantly pulled  to the base of his neck, Silver looks like like the Hollywood-version of everything that a conman is _supposed_ to be. He might have stepped, fully formed, from the cologne-soaked pages of a glossy magazine advertisement--armed with a dangerous smile and the kind of cross-road dreams a man might sell his soul for.

Even the way he carries himself is different. Flint watches in the mirror as Silver stalks like some lanky, wild animal over to the bathroom door, resting one arm against the frame.

“Well, what do you think?”

_Nothing Flint is willing to admit out loud._

“Like I said before, you do clean half-respectably.”

Silver laughs. Then he crosses the threshold.

It’s not a large bathroom, so this puts him rather close to Flint.

“I’m a thief and a liar,” Silver says, low and with a smile in his voice. A warm current flows down  the buttons of Flint’s spine as Silver comes up behind him. “There’s nothing respectable about me at all.”

And damned if Flint isn’t tempted, if part of him doesn’t want to sink back into that warm current. To be pulled under. To drown in it. But this is not the time to indulge.

There could not possibly be a worse time, in fact.

So instead, Flint turns around. He finds Silver with the errant cuff-link in one hand, holding out the other for Flint’s sleeve.  There are innumerable reasons why Flint shouldn’t allow this, but in the end Flint lets Silver take his hand for the same reason Flint ever allows Silver to do anything--he wants to see what Silver will do with it.

“And after all of this is finished,” Silver murmurs, fixing the closure in place and brushing his thumb just over the skin of Flint’s wrist under the cuff.  “I’ll steal you.”

Flint snorts, but doesn’t draw back his hand.  

They should have already left the warehouse, Flint reminds himself. They have to leave now, or they risk being late.

“You aren’t a very good thief, Silver. I caught you.”  

“Maybe I wanted to be caught.”

Flint rolls his eyes and decides that the only reasonable response to that kind of rosy-eyed  bullshit is to shove Silver back out of the bathroom.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Flint decides as he pulls Silver toward the back door. “When this is over, I’ve decided that I am going to honor your request that I take you out back and shoot you.”

Silver huffs.

“Oh, don't be so depressed about it. I seem to recall you telling me that you had lived a good life,” Flint reminds him.

Silver allows himself to be led easily out the door.

When he does speak he doesn’t sound sulky like Flint expected. Instead, his voice has a curious softness to it: “You know, I really thought I did.”

Flint casts a sidelong glance at Silver, uncertain what he might mean by this.

The only thing immediately evident to Flint is that there is a piece of lint on Silver’s arm.

Flint brushes it  off.

 

\---

 

They arrive at  the Strand well before curtain call. Flint relinquishes the SUV to the spotty teenaged valet and they make their way up the wide marble steps and through the massive, medieval-looking wrought iron doors into the great hall.

Stepping into the chattering, echoing warmth of the enormous room is a shock after the silent chill of the night outside--drowsy and dizzying like sinking into a warm bath.

The hall is already packed with guests, milling and churning through the space with the same strange group-intelligence that makes flocks of starlings so captivating to watch. Everywhere, necks and ears and wrists drip with a greedy dragon’s hoard of sparkling gemstones, the glittering sea of bodies transformed into a dark, enchanted court in the low light.

Awash in the golden, guttering gaslight of the ancient chandeliers, the elegant regalia of the crowd seems somehow ageless.

Flint could almost imagine that they had stepped through the door and into another evening, hundreds of years past--into a time when savagery and animal nature lived a little closer under the skin. It seems fitting.

Flint keeps on hand at Silver’s back, guiding as they cut their way through throngs of people draped in all manner of finery--sharp suits and gowns, rich furs and silks-- the crowd closing behind in their wake. And Flint is a little relieved to see that--even set among this shining and luxuriant splendor--Silver still turns heads.

That it wasn’t just Flint.

They find their box and settle into their seats.

 

**\----**

 

“Which box is Hamilton in?” Silver asks as the lights dim before the show.

“Directly to our right--for fucks sake don’t look, Silver,” Flint says as Silver makes to turn his head. “Max is in with them.”

“Dufresne says we’re all set,” Gate’s voice crackles and hisses through the coms. “All we need now is the schedule.”

Flint looks at Silver expectantly.

Silver looks back at Flint.

“What, do I --?”

“Oh, I swear to--” Flint closes his eyes and presses his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose. “Silver, _give Gates the schedule_.”

“What, just over the ear thing?” Silver flaps a hand at his own head, indicating the com in his ear. ”That’s okay?”

“How else were you planning to do it--telepathically?” Flint stops himself.

“Yes, Silver. Yes, just talk into your earpiece.”

“Not too loud now,” Gates says as Silver turns his head into his shoulder and starts to rattle off a string of numbers and letters.

_“Four. Six. ‘A’, as in alpha--”_

As the stage lights come up and the heavy red velvet curtain is raised, Flint allows himself a brief moment to consider what he might do if the schedule is wrong--if Silver’s been stringing them along this entire time, or is he’s failed to memorize the schedule correctly in the first place. Just a few weeks ago, the answer would have been as clear to him as the little ceramic blade in its holster digging into Flint's ankle.

As Silver rattles off the schedule Flint ponders this , unaware that betrayal from this direction will be the last thing he needs to worry about tonight.

“Okay,” Gates finally says. “Okay, got it. This looks about right for an encryption key, so that’s good. But of course we’ll have to wait and see if--”

“It’s right,” Silver says sharply, cutting him off. “I swear it’s right.”

Gates grunts noncommittally. “Whether it's right or not, now we wait.”

For lack of anything else to do until Hamilton makes the exchange with the buyer, Flint sits back and watches the opera--he’s never been to one before, and is a little curious to see what it is like.

 

\---

 

Flint decides that he fucking hates opera.

 

\---

 

Of course, Flint can’t imagine he’d like anything that stood between him and Hamilton tonight.

Perhaps under different circumstances, Flint might have been able to enjoy the performance-- although this is rather like saying he might have liked the boarding school he had been sent to on scholarship as a boy if it hadn’t been full of so many rich, pretentious assholes.

Silver looks like he’s enjoying himself, leaning forward in his seat as the lead soprano--with her generous cleavage heaving over her tight corseted dress-- trills something high and sweet in vibrato-ing Italian.

So there’s that, at least.

 

\---

 

“Just how long does an opera last?” Flint asks no one in particular, an hour in.

“We’re almost to the intermission,” Silver whispers back.

Flint tries not to groan.

Flint’s own nature is sometimes strange to him-- he doesn’t understand how he could have spent so long patiently charting out the course of his revenge only to find these last, mere minutes of waiting so unbearable.

It defies all logic--this is nothing in comparison to the time Flint’s already spent wayfinding through the limbo of these past years. Yet Flint can’t imagine anything worse than another hour of this wretched, actionless anticipation.

 

\---

 

As it turns out, this represents a failure of imagination on Flint’s part-- a fact that dawns on Flint only after he discovers that he and Silver have been trapped inside of their box.

 

\---

 

Flint tries the door twice.

Finding it solidly locked both times, Flint has to stop himself from kicking the fucking thing which--given the solid construction of the doors--will only result in a broken foot and a door that is still, stubbornly and uncompromisingly locked.

With infinite control, Flint turns and rests his back against the door so that he isn’t tempted to do something ill-advised that will most likely end with his leg in a cast.

Silver mouths: _“What?”_

Though every muscle is screaming for action--for Flint to move, to scream, for _violence_ \-- the only thing Flint does is to slowly make a fist with his right hand, bringing it down carefully against the solid oak. “The door is locked.”

Silver looks at him like: _What the hell does that mean?_

It means Flint has been betrayed-- that the solid ground he’s been building on has cracked open beneath his feet, though how badly and where the fault lies he cannot say.

All Flint knows is that the doors are set to shut and lock electronically--a safety measure in the event of a shooter or similar threat. As far as Flint can see, the doors in the adjacent boxes remain open-- and so the protocol on their door must have been selectively activated.

This can only mean one of two things- _-_ either Hamilton’s security has found them out and trapped them like two rats in a barrel, or Dufresne has.

“What is this?” Flint demands into the com. “Dufresne?”

But it is Gates who answers: “He did it on my orders Flint.”

Just like that, Flint is chilled. He feels as though he’s fallen through solid ice into the dark waters below, all the warmth in him eaten up by the ravenous cold.

Because even though the outcome would have been objectively worse, Flint _wanted_ it to be Hamilton. Because then at least it wouldn’t be  his own team that’s mutinied.  It wouldn’t be _Gates._

Yes, on some level Flint always knew that trusting a man like Gates was like a strip-club regular truly believing a stripper’s promises that what they had was special. Because at its core, the relationship was transactional.  Yes, Flint should have known better than to ever count Gates among his friends.

But it fucking guts him--it fucking twists the knife. Because the people Flint’s close to--really close to-- Flint can count on one hand.

“You’ve been unpredictable,” Gates is explaining over the com. 

“Gates, unlock this door,” He growls.

“I can’t do that,” Gates says--reassuring, like he’s reasoning with a child: “We aren’t cutting you out of your share--”

“ _Fuck the shares_ ,” Flint hisses. “There won’t be any fucking shares if Max needs backup and we can’t do anything because you’ve trapped us in here with our thumbs up our asses. Now unlock the fucking door.”

“Max will be fine--”

Flint stops listening and kicks the door.

Nothing happens.

“Gates,” Flint says quietly, “you had best be long gone by the time you unlock this door. Take your share and find some little, quiet corner of the world were I won’t find you. ”

“Flint--”

Flint pushes the button on his com and Gates goes quiet. 

Then Flint slides down to the floor like someone’s reached inside and pulled all the bones out of him. Propped against the door in the darkened back of the box, the pain in his foot hardly registers. 

Flint is very glad of the darkness, glad that no one can see him but Silver.

He feels like he’s clinging to the flotsam of a sinking ship like a rat, watching the sharks begin to circle in ever-tightening spirals. Because there it is again- _-_ those rows upon rows of wicked teeth yawning up from the blackest part of him--the conviction that they will fail, that they are failing.

And there is not a single fucking thing Flint can do about it.

“Flint?” Silver whispers, peering back at him worriedly.

“Not now,” Flint says.

“Just tell me if anything happens over the coms.”

 

**\----**

  


Flint is equal parts vindicated and miserable when Max’s voice crackles over Silver’s earpiece half an hour later: “I can get to the computer, but a distraction would be helpful.”

Flint’s immediate, knee-jerk reaction after Silver relays the message is more anger. They’re  locked in a box fifteen feet away--fuckfuckityfucking _fuck._

But when facing an immediate problem, Flint has always been a man of action.  He switches his radio back on and starts to look around the box, searching for anything that might be of use.

Velvet curtains tied back with thick silk ropes--maybe they could be fashioned into a means of rappelling to the lower balcony?

Not without attracting a significant amount of attention.

Chairs--these could possible be used to break down the reinforced door, but that would make too much noise and take far too long.

The only other thing in the box is Silver, who is out of his chair and looking down at Flint in much the same way Flint was sizing up the velvet curtains a minute ago.

“We can fix this,” Silver says.

“How the fuck do you think we’re going to do that Silver? ” Flint growls. “There is nothing we _can_ do--Gates saw to that.”

“No. Flint, we can fix this,” Silver repeats, holding out his hand to Flint. “Trust me.”

Flint looks up at him and to his utter surprise, Flint rather finds he  does-- trust Silver, that is.

Flint trusts Silver will always be an opportunist. Flint trusts him to be likable. And though Silver is a liar and a thief-- and occasionally an idiot-- Flint trusts Silver to be kind. Good, even. At least as good as any of them can be.

And it’s not as though there are many other options, so Flint takes Silver’s extended hand and hoists himself to standing.

“I have a plan.” Silver says.

Though Flint can think of few more terrifying phrases that could come out of Silver's mouth, he  follows Silver back to their chairs, hobbling a little on his good foot.

Flint takes his seat and as the performers sweat and sway and crescendo under the hot stage lights, Silver leans over in his chair and kisses Flint in the dark.

“What--” But Silver tangles his hands in Flint’s hair and drags them back together.

“Shhh,” Silver whispers. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll let you throw me off of a building later--I promise.”

Flint looks and sees that a few of the spectators in the neighboring boxes are starring in their direction.

One man turns to his female companion, clearly disgusted, and one elderly woman stares at them like they are a particularly interesting pair of birds, even going so far as to pull out-- _what the fuck_ \-- a pair of binocular-like opera glasses.  But most seem to be trying to ignore them.

Then Flint realizes that from the positioning of Silver’s body--his hands in Flint’s lap--it must look as though Flint is getting _quite_ a bit more than a kiss.

_Oh._ Flint thinks.

Because as far as distractions go, that’s not bad. Probably not anything someone is going to call security over, but clearly still--well--distracting.

Silver smirks when he sees Flint’s caught on.

“I can stop,” Silver offers, turning his head to whisper into Flint’s neck. “We could try something else.”

Flint shakes his head, nodding toward Hamilton’s box, where no one has so much as looked in their direction: “It’s not enough.”

“Hmm,” Silver says.

Then Silver grabs Flint’s long black jacket, whips it over his head, and slides out of his chair on to his knees.

Flint has a brief moment of dissociation--of pure, unadulterated _how-the-fuck-is-this-happening_ \--when he feels Silvers breath on the inside of his right thigh, hot even through the fabric of his pants.

_Fuck,_ Flint thinks, jerking upward in his seat so suddenly that he nearly brains Silver with his knee.

Silver lays a reassuring hand on Flint’s leg as if to say-- _hey,_ _just me_.

To anyone who merely glances over, it will look as though Flint is alone in his box with his coat draped awkwardly over his knees. Closer scrutiny will prompt embarrassment, curiosity, or possibly the summoning of security.

Either way, it is clear that Flint is now the distraction.

_Right,_ Flint thinks.

All he has to do it provide sufficient cover so that Max can get to the computer--and he can do that.  Flint thinks, trying to puzzle out how best to mime receiving oral sex.

As he is thinking, Silver brings up his hands to fumble with Flint’s zipper.

_JesusChristShitFuckingFuck_.

Flint only realizes he’s  hissed the words aloud when a few disapproving looks come his way from the box to their left.

Flint can’t bring himself to care-- partially because this was the desired effect and partially because Silver is now touching him, pulling Flint out of his underwear. Flint can feel Silver’s breath--

“You know, for some reason I really thought you’d be quieter,” Silver says, squeezing Flint’s ankle with his free hand.

“Well, what the fuck did you expect to happen?” Flint hisses.

He must look insane, Flint realizes wildly-- to all appearances a lone man, slightly hunched over and talking very sternly to his own crotch.  Though of course, that would  probably also work as a distraction.

“Tell me if you need me to stop,” Silver says.

“You little shit,” Flint tries to say. Because no, Flint doesn’t want Silver to stop, but _what the actual fuck_.  But then his dick is in Silver’s mouth and it is suddenly very difficult to say anything at all.

Flint doesn’t understand how he can even get it up--there are a million other fucking things he should be paying attention to right now. They are surrounded by strangers. What small privacy they do have is granted only through the relatively dim lighting of their box. Really, anyone could look over and see, if not the act itself, certainly enough to have a fairly clear idea of what was going on underneath the jacket.

Flint’s never even  been a huge fan of blowjobs, for fuck’s sake.

He generally found them nice enough, but more a rushed prelude to the main event than anything else. Weirdly unintimate for sex that involved one person’s dick meeting another person’s mouth, they had always left him feeling vulnerable and unmoored, and Flint rarely reached completion from that act alone.  

But right now all he can feel is Silver--the warmth of Silver’s hand, the heat of Silver’s mouth. All he can think of is how different this is.

Not the soulless, hollow-cheeked head-bobbing Flint’s been on the receiving end of an anonymous handful of times--rushed preludes to rough fucks in the dark back when he was in the Navy.  Silver’s touch is a gentle thing, almost delicate--soft and warm and wet.

Given Flint’s groan when Silver swallows Flint to the hilt, Silver might be surprised to learn that his initial impression was actually quiet accurate-- beyond a few baser noises, Flint is normally rather quiet in bed. But something about not being able to make any sound--the very necessity of Flint’s remaining silent lest he draw _too much_ attention to their box-- only inspires the strangest, counterproductive desire in him to do just the opposite.

Flint brings a hand to his mouth instead, the other white-knuckling the arm of the chair because if he doesn’t, Flint is certain he’ll do something stupid like reach out for Silver instead.

And then-- _god_ \--then Silver starts to move, sliding up and down, and Flint forgets to think--nearly forgets to breath.Silver’s tongue curves against the ridged underside of Flint’s dick, sliding over the head as Silver pulls back, following the spit-slick motion with a twist of his hand.

Flint wants to reach under the jacket-- tangle his hands in Silver’s shirt, his hair. Anything, really.

But, lest he broadcast the act to half the audience, all Flint can really do is sit back and take it. It’s maddening-- feeling at once so powerful and powerless.

Having drawn Flint to full hardness, Silver begins to stroke Flint lazily, the pressure of his pursed lips keeping Flint keyed up and on edge without letting him slip over.

“Oh, you--,” Flint says under his breath. “ _Move.”_

Silver whacks the outside of Flint’s upper thigh in response and slows his pace even further.

_Fucking----fuck._

Flint is going to fucking _die._

Flint is going to fucking die and then Flint  is going to fucking crawl his way out of whatever sad backwater ditch his traitor crew tosses his body into and then Flint’s going to fucking kill Silver.

Just see how Silver likes it when Flint brings him to the edge and keeps him there--Silver submitting himself to the same torture. Silver sprawled, panting on a bed as Flint edges him. Silver writhing, Silver begging for it. For Flint to--

Flint bites his tongue and rests his head back against the plush velvet seat, because _what the_ **_fuck._ **

But the image is already there, stubbornly fixed in his mind.

And now that it’s there, Flint can’t stop thinking about it.

Max is saying something over the coms-- "-- _think that it is working._ ”--but as soon as Flint registers the word ‘working’, he tunes her out.  

Because Flint is already getting a blowjob in front of at least two-thousand other people, the closest of which are about to find out what Flint sounds like when he comes if he doesn’t find a way to be quieter--Flint _really_  doesn’t need to make it any weirder by also having an accidental,  auditory almost-threesome with Max.

Pleased by Flint’s performance, Silver runs his tongue once over Flint’s sensitive slit-- _god_ \--  before increasing his speed. He repeating the motion with tantalizing unpredictability, relentless  until Flint has to stop himself from canting his hips--from fucking up into Silver’s mouth.

The strain of holding his thighs in check quickly turns painful, but soon afterward--in some strange alchemy of crossed wiring and over-stimulation that’s always fascinated Flint-- the sensation slips over the knife’s edge from discomfort to something divine.

Even the ache of his foot somehow turns from pain to distant, throbbing pleasure.

The theater may have been burning down around them for all the attention Flint paid to it. The audience may well have risen as one from their seats and floated gently to the high ceiling as if filled with helium, and Flint wouldn't have cared.

He is beyond caring. He is no longer Flint--all that exists is the sweet, building pressure bearing down on him like a wave.

He finds himself incapable of holding himself still any longer, clawing one of his hands under the jacket to wend his fingers through the thick curls at the back of Silver’s head. Not pushing or tugging, but  simply for want--for need-- of a point of contact.

Silver moans, and Flint can feel it all around him. It is what finally pushes Flint over the edge.

He has enough presence of mind to tap Silver on the back of the head in forewarning, but Silver doesn’t pull back. He swallows Flint down--hard and relentless and perfect--the incessant press of it making Flint’s vision go white as he comes.

And Silver keeps swallowing even after Flint is spent--Flint so sensitive that the sweetness becomes unbearable in its sharp intensity. Flint has to push Silver away.

“Silver, you shit,” He breathes hard. “Stop. Fuck. _Stop._ ”

“It is done,” Max’s voice chirps, cheerful and almost sing-song over the coms.

Flint blinks, idly running his fingers through Silver’s hair for a moment until Silver gets to his feet-- not quite believing that this isn’t the strangest erotic dream of his life.

Of anyone’s life, possibly.

“Shit,” Flint says as Silver settles back into his seat, looking terribly pleased with himself.

  
On stage, the soprano belts out the final, ethereal notes of her show-stopping solo-- triumphant over a prone actor surrounded in a pool red silk like blood. There is a standing ovation after the final note, for which Flint remains decidedly seated-- it feels as though someone has cut all the delicate little wiring connecting Flint’s legs to the rest of him.


	9. Chapter 9

\---

 

There’s this story Flint knows.

Some blind prophet promises a storm-tossed, long-suffering son-of-a-bitch some peace-- all the poor old bastard needs to do is take an oar upon his shoulder and walk inland, mile after dusty mile, until some idiot mistakes the oar for a winnowing fan. 

Two lies in the story:

One-- that there is ever going to be anyone who doesn’t know what a fucking oar looks like, even in shitfuck-nowhere ancient Greece. 

And two-- that in this hypothetical, oar-less land, populated entirely by halfwits and far from the sea, the man will find peace. Because the siren call of those wine-dark waves was never in the water at all. 

A man can’t escape what he carries with him in his soul.

 

\---

 

When Flint gets back to the warehouse the building is dark and has the deserted, haunted feel of photographs he’s seen of towns abandoned after nuclear disasters. 

The place is empty. Without the buzzing, busy hum of people and the work to distract him, Flint is reminded of just how shitty and run-down their makeshift headquarters was to start with--panes of glass missing from the windows, the crumbling concrete, that one step on the landing that’s almost rotted all the way through.

It has the slightly creepy,  _ memento mori _ air of all buildings left to rot and stepping through the door feels less like stepping into a place that’s been lived than it does stepping into a cave. The effect persists even after Flint’s fumbled on the overhead switch-- a sense that strange, unknowable animal creatures lurk just beyond the light. That  _ he _ is the alien one, will only ever be a visitor here-- a temporary blip in a long, unchanging history of the place. 

Though it’s only been a few hours, Flint imagines he can feel the damp from the river and the rot creeping in from the edges. The water reclaiming the building for its own with slow but unrelenting patience--dragging it under as inexorably as the pale turrets and bastillions of Atlantis. 

Flint would find this strange and slightly morbid new perspective worrisome, except that the entire drive back from the Strand was the same way--with everything steeped in that strange sense of unreality.

But when he climbs the stairs to the office and sees the envelope on his desk, Flint feels the blurry uncertainty burn off of him like a fog. It’s been propped up at an angle so that Flint can see the sidery crawl of Gate’s handwriting scrawled across it in red. And that drops him like lead plummeting down a shot tower, tempering him into something coiled and cool and dangerous--ready to be loaded into a gun.

_ Flint: read me, _ says the envelope.

He takes the envelope in his hands and tips out its contents with a shake--a letter folded into quarters and a tiny blue flashdrive.  Flint stares at Gates’ letter for a very long time. Then he takes it up and tucks it into one of his books, unread. (It will remain there, tucked away into the pages and the back of Flint’s mind, for years.)

He turns his attention to the flashdrive. 

 

\---

 

In the end, Flint sends the entire content of the little blue drive to Miranda .

Then he drinks a litre of orange juice straight from the enormous carton of the stuff he finds in the fridge, pulls out the office couch into a bed, and sleeps for sixteen hours.

 

\---

 

At some point, Flint gets up to drink the last of the orange juice and piss like a racehorse. When he comes back, Silver is perched on the edge of the bed .

“There is a lot of money in my bank account.” Silver whispers very quietly--as if afraid that if he speaks too loudly, someone will realize a mistake has been made and take it all back. 

Though he can barely make out Silver’s silhouette in the dark, the crouched posture makes Flint think of Silver hunched over the basket of mozzarella sticks at the bar, shoveling food into his mouth like it would vanish if he didn’t. Of Silver whispering:  _ I have a plan _ , in the opera box just after handing over the schedule. Of everything that came after.

Flint wonders why Silver thinks all the things he wants--all the things he needs-- will be stolen away from him if he doesn’t dig in his teeth. 

Flint climbs into bed, reaching up to pull Silver down beside him. “Yes, there is.” 

“ _ A lot _ a lot,” Silver says as though he feels the needs to clarify this point, letting  himself be pulled-- boneless and liquid as a cat. 

Flint curls around Silver's body until they’re tucked together like puzzle pieces, Flint’s nose is buried in the nimbus of Silver’s hair.  As Flint lets his breath even out,  there is a pleasant warmth that sparks up just at the base of his skull, rising in him like the tide. 

Silver makes to say something else: “Like--”

“Shhhh.” 

“Like  _ so much _ . I don’t fucking--”

“Silver,” Flint murmurs into the back of Silver’s neck. “Please, just go the fuck to sleep.”

Silver does.

 

\---

  
  


Flint doesn’t have a fucking clue what a winnowing fan is, but there’s one more thing Flint knows about the story--even if the guy knew the promise of peace was a lie, no one could really begrudge the poor old bastard for trying. 

  
  


\---

 

When Flint wakes up he finds that the world has shifted under his feet. 

He brews coffee and watches as channel after channel of news programs play a single five second clip on infinite loop-- Hamilton, as he’ s led from the sleek lobby of his high-rise in handcuffs. 

After the first couple of times Flint could probably close his eyes and see each second of it replayed in perfect, minute detail on the back of his eyelids.  Instead he keeps flipping through the channels and seeing it again and again under a range of lurid titles, reflected back like a funhouse mirror stretching out to infinity.

At some point Silver floats in-- kisses Flint on the cheek like he’s answering a question Flint hadn’t even known wanted asking.  Flint closes his eyes and leans into it. N one of this feels real--this all could be some elaborate dream from which Flint might wake from at any minute.

Except that he is absolutely  _ starving.  _

By the time Flint looks back at the news, the bobble-headed announcers have moved on. The dark haired one is discussing the possibility that some strange, viral internet videos are obviously directly responsible for rampant teenage drug use, pregnancy, cell-phone addiction--if not the downfall of civilization. 

So Flint thinks that in all probably, the world can’t have shifted that much. 

Enough, maybe.   
  


He grabs SIlver and, though it is a little past three in the afternoon, they venture out to the grubby little diner a few blocks down for breakfast. 

 

\---

  
  


Flint is taking his time packing up the warehouse office when there is a sonorous, echoing “ _ brrrraaaaaaam”  _ from the river.

Flint ignores it at first, but when it happens again and a third time, he looks down through the windows to see a sailboat docked at the old, disused pier. Silver is on the deck, shoeless and waving up once he sees Flint in the window. 

What the _fuck._

There isn’t a soul in sight when Flint gets out to the dock, so Flint calls out: “Silver?”

Silver’s voice drifts on the warm breeze, getting louder as Flint approaches the boat: “Welcome aboard the Walrus.” 

Flint snorts: “Who owns a boat called the _Walrus_?” 

“Well us now,” Silver says, a disembodied voice rising from somewhere below decks. “We do.”

Flint opens his mouth to reply, then closes it again. He crosses his arms: “We?” 

“Do you really think  _ I _ know how to sail?” Silver’s voice gets louder as he makes his way out of the cabin and climbs up to the deck. “I nearly capsized twice on the way here. Almost ran into one of those big barge things. It was honestly terrifying--please don’t let me go out into open water alone.”

Flint takes a moment to process this.  He can’t decide whether to laugh or throw Silver in the river, so instead he asks: “Silver, what makes you think I know how to sail?”

“Well you were in the Navy. Max told me.”

“Ah,” Flint says. He recrosses his arms and tries not to smile. “Well. Yes.”

Silver emerges from behind the sail. He is in a t-shirt and a ratty pair of deeply regrettable cargo shorts. There is an enormous blue Macaw perched on his shoulder. 

“So you bought a boat,” Flint says--stupidly, obviously. 

_ So you bought  _ **_me_ ** _ a boat. _

“I bought a boat,” Silver agrees indulgently,  waiting for Flint to catch up.

“...and a massive parrot?”

“Oh, I didn’t buy her. She came with,” Silver gestures vaguely around at the rigging as he bends his head toward the bird, cooing: “Whoosa pretty bird, Hmm? I can’t imagine why anyone would want to get rid of you--”

The bird unleashes a torrent of perfectly dictated expletives of such fluent profanity, it is almost poetic. 

Demonstrating  a thorough familiarity with the bottom-most scummy bits scraped from the filthiest abscesses of the  english language, the parrot’s outburst is unlike anything Flint has ever heard. 

And it is carried out, at some volume, directly into Silver’s left ear. 

Flint grins. “I like it. What’s its name?”

“Well, I’ve decided to call  _ her _ Captain Flint.”

“ _ No _ .”

“I seem to recall that you didn’t want any part in naming our adopted children--”

“Our  _ hypothetical _ adopted--No. You know what,  _ fuck you  _ that’s a  _ bird _ .”

“FUCK,” Says Captain Flint--happy to latch onto the word like a sticky-tongued toddler. 

Flint can’t stop smiling. 

 

\--

 

As it turns out, even with the new-found resources afforded to him, Silver somehow still somehow found a shit boat--making the Walrus sea-worthy is no small undertaking,

Flint suspects that the prospect of a free parrot may have ultimately been the deciding factor.

But still, Flint enjoys the work. Silver and Flint spend long hours under the sun, Silver turning impossibly tan and Flint more freckled than he’d been in years.The days grow longer and the callouses on Flint’s palms and fingers grow thicker. Flint scrapes and sands and patches, until he knows every inch of it by touch. Until he feels the thing come alive under his hands.

Then one day in early summer, there is nothing more to do.

\---

 

“Well, I guess we’re ready.” Silver turns to the parrot: “Any words of wisdom you’d like to share before we go, Cap?”

“FUCK.”

“On that note--” Flint unhitches the thin line tying them to the dock, holding the rough rope in his hand for a brief moment.

_ This is real,  _ he thinks _.  _ Despite everything that’s happened, Flint still breathes--his heart still beats.  The breeze is strong.  The sea reaches out  before them like a great never-ending highway, and Flint feels so very much alive

They set sail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End


End file.
